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Putting a profit motive anywhere near anything that is safety critical is almost never a good idea. Naval Nuclear Power has it's issues, yet it is so safe that

Putting a profit motive anywhere near anything that is safety critical is almost never a good idea. Naval Nuclear Power has it's issues, yet it is so safe that we have almost no incidents. That's because things like this don't happen there due to the culture of safety. That said, this is about production rather than operation, but the overall communities are relatively small and aligned.

eru 4y ago
> Putting a profit motive anywhere near anything that is safety critical is almost never a good idea. Why? And exactly how do you mean that? Is the safety track record of private industry worse than that of eg non-profit or state owned industry.
- Retric 4y ago
  It’s hard to do a direct comparison as government jobs tend to inherently be more risky and accident reporting rates vary. An Air Force pilot isn’t directly analogous to an airline pilot nor is a police officer even vaguely equivalent to private security. Private sector hospitals, which are arguably the closest direct analog with public sector counterparts, have higher rates of workplace injury than public sector hospitals. By comparison private teachers have lower rates, but work with less at risk populations etc. PS: Reports of illness are noticeably higher in the public sector, but that likely relates to differences in PTO etc.
  - eru 4y ago
    Thanks. I was more thinking of industrial accidents, for example. In any case, when given the right incentives, profit seeking companies are excellent at promoting safety. Similarly, bureaucrats working for organisations without a profit-motive don't magically follow the same preferences we might dream up in our armchairs. They also need to be given the right incentives.
    - redanddead 4y ago
      give examples, I'm really not convinced. If anything public sector industries are far far larger in terms of scale, so it's likely that 1 single public disaster trumps many private ones. However, private sector has shown time and time again that it can create huge issues, for example take the forever chemicals inside you right now that you didn't consent to having inside you. I want to believe private and corporate is better. It's hard for me.
- chadcmulligan 4y ago
  You can have it cheap, good or fast pick two.
  - eru 4y ago
    Pick two or less.. Sure, but I don't see how that relates to the topic at hand? This constraint exists for all organisations. As do budget constraints.
    - bumby 4y ago
      I think the idea is that a for-profit motive forces you to choose "cheap". And if your contract has productivity targets, it constrains you to also select "fast". These types of contracts are often selected for lowest bidder. I know of one such example where the contractor was pressed during the bid process about how they could be so competitive with their quote. The retort was to the effect of "Our secret is we do more with less." Unless there really is a vast difference in capability of the competing contractors, this naturally puts downward pressure on just doing less (in the form of following certain requirements).
      - eru 4y ago
        That seems to be a feature of lowest-bid procurement, no matter whether the bidders are non-profits or whatever.
        bumby 4y ago
        Agreed. But "going to bid" will almost certainly constrain to a profit motive. Even if there was a case where a bidder is non-profit, I can't fathom how they would bid on a project with the intent to be in the red. Maybe there are more exotic ways to run a lab, but it seems like the choice is to either figure out how to work with a profit motive or be a primarily civil servant lab. The govt can sometimes try a "best value" award instead of low bidder, but that tends to make lawyers skittish because it opens up avenues for the losing bidders to protest the award.
- tjs8rj 4y ago
  It seems theoretically sound: the profitably threshold for accidents is lower than the threshold most people are comfortable risking their lives for a job for, so a for-profit company is pressured to lower standards to the most profitable level (eg having people continue to work around a safety accident). You can always ensure the profitable accident level stays above this with steeper penalties from regulation though.
  - eru 4y ago
    Well, either steeper penalties via regulation, or via competition for labour: > [...] the threshold most people are comfortable risking their lives for a job for [...] This suggests that employers with a reputation for danger would have higher labour costs.
ars 4y ago
The safety issues pre-dated any profit motive: "In 2005, shortly before the profit-making firms wrested majority control of the laboratory from the University of California, the lab's "nuclear criticality safety program did not meet many of the" nuclear industry's standards, according to a DOE report in 2008." The lab just doesn't have a culture of safety, it has nothing to do with profit. The profit motive was mentioned in the Japanese lab, not Los Alamos.
- bumby 4y ago
  It’s possible it isn’t quite so easy to parse the profit motive in that manner. For example, I worked in a not-for-profit research facility. The top line managers were govt but the vast majority of workers were for-profit contractors. There was about a 9:1 contractor to civil servant ratio. On paper, it was a govt run facility but in practice, the for-profit culture dominated.
bombcar 4y ago
I suspect the navy gets away with really riding peoples asses on safety - and developing protocols and procedures and equipment that are “military grade” meaning a drunk monkey with a sledgehammer could operate it successfully. Designing things that verify previous steps before acting on the next step is a great way to do it.
- Tangurena2 4y ago
  Well, the Navy does have to make everything sailor-proof. To paraphrase my dad: "there's the right way, the wrong way and the Army [0] way." > Designing things that verify previous steps before acting on the next step is a great way to do it. In Japanese industry, this is called "poka yoke" [1]. It is very common in the auto industry (Toyota made it real popular). Notes: 0 - one could replace Army with Navy, Marines or Air Force with no loss of truthiness. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke

eru 4y ago

> Putting a profit motive anywhere near anything that is safety critical is almost never a good idea. Why? And exactly how do you mean that? Is the safety track record of private industry worse than that of eg non-profit or state owned industry.

Retric 4y ago
It’s hard to do a direct comparison as government jobs tend to inherently be more risky and accident reporting rates vary. An Air Force pilot isn’t directly analogous to an airline pilot nor is a police officer even vaguely equivalent to private security. Private sector hospitals, which are arguably the closest direct analog with public sector counterparts, have higher rates of workplace injury than public sector hospitals. By comparison private teachers have lower rates, but work with less at risk populations etc. PS: Reports of illness are noticeably higher in the public sector, but that likely relates to differences in PTO etc.
- eru 4y ago
  Thanks. I was more thinking of industrial accidents, for example. In any case, when given the right incentives, profit seeking companies are excellent at promoting safety. Similarly, bureaucrats working for organisations without a profit-motive don't magically follow the same preferences we might dream up in our armchairs. They also need to be given the right incentives.
  - redanddead 4y ago
    give examples, I'm really not convinced. If anything public sector industries are far far larger in terms of scale, so it's likely that 1 single public disaster trumps many private ones. However, private sector has shown time and time again that it can create huge issues, for example take the forever chemicals inside you right now that you didn't consent to having inside you. I want to believe private and corporate is better. It's hard for me.
chadcmulligan 4y ago
You can have it cheap, good or fast pick two.
- eru 4y ago
  Pick two or less.. Sure, but I don't see how that relates to the topic at hand? This constraint exists for all organisations. As do budget constraints.
  - bumby 4y ago
    I think the idea is that a for-profit motive forces you to choose "cheap". And if your contract has productivity targets, it constrains you to also select "fast". These types of contracts are often selected for lowest bidder. I know of one such example where the contractor was pressed during the bid process about how they could be so competitive with their quote. The retort was to the effect of "Our secret is we do more with less." Unless there really is a vast difference in capability of the competing contractors, this naturally puts downward pressure on just doing less (in the form of following certain requirements).
    - eru 4y ago
      That seems to be a feature of lowest-bid procurement, no matter whether the bidders are non-profits or whatever.
      - bumby 4y ago
        Agreed. But "going to bid" will almost certainly constrain to a profit motive. Even if there was a case where a bidder is non-profit, I can't fathom how they would bid on a project with the intent to be in the red. Maybe there are more exotic ways to run a lab, but it seems like the choice is to either figure out how to work with a profit motive or be a primarily civil servant lab. The govt can sometimes try a "best value" award instead of low bidder, but that tends to make lawyers skittish because it opens up avenues for the losing bidders to protest the award.
tjs8rj 4y ago
It seems theoretically sound: the profitably threshold for accidents is lower than the threshold most people are comfortable risking their lives for a job for, so a for-profit company is pressured to lower standards to the most profitable level (eg having people continue to work around a safety accident). You can always ensure the profitable accident level stays above this with steeper penalties from regulation though.
- eru 4y ago
  Well, either steeper penalties via regulation, or via competition for labour: > [...] the threshold most people are comfortable risking their lives for a job for [...] This suggests that employers with a reputation for danger would have higher labour costs.

ars 4y ago

The safety issues pre-dated any profit motive: "In 2005, shortly before the profit-making firms wrested majority control of the laboratory from the University of California, the lab's "nuclear criticality safety program did not meet many of the" nuclear industry's standards, according to a DOE report in 2008." The lab just doesn't have a culture of safety, it has nothing to do with profit. The profit motive was mentioned in the Japanese lab, not Los Alamos.

bumby 4y ago
It’s possible it isn’t quite so easy to parse the profit motive in that manner. For example, I worked in a not-for-profit research facility. The top line managers were govt but the vast majority of workers were for-profit contractors. There was about a 9:1 contractor to civil servant ratio. On paper, it was a govt run facility but in practice, the for-profit culture dominated.

bombcar 4y ago

I suspect the navy gets away with really riding peoples asses on safety - and developing protocols and procedures and equipment that are “military grade” meaning a drunk monkey with a sledgehammer could operate it successfully. Designing things that verify previous steps before acting on the next step is a great way to do it.

Tangurena2 4y ago
Well, the Navy does have to make everything sailor-proof. To paraphrase my dad: "there's the right way, the wrong way and the Army [0] way." > Designing things that verify previous steps before acting on the next step is a great way to do it. In Japanese industry, this is called "poka yoke" [1]. It is very common in the auto industry (Toyota made it real popular). Notes: 0 - one could replace Army with Navy, Marines or Air Force with no loss of truthiness. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke