5 ms·

> And the article said that after those criticality events, those in charge of the facility and safety of personnel just had people keep working instead of evac

by ars 4y ago

> And the article said that after those criticality events, those in charge of the facility and safety of personnel just had people keep working instead of evacuating. And how exactly did they convince those employees to keep working? The employees are not making extra for not following rules, do people really just not care about their lives? (I don't for a second believe someone working in a nuclear lab would be unaware of criticality, so ignorance can't be the explanation.)

thrown_22 4y ago
There is a very gung ho culture in labs about safety. It slows you down to do things right and when it comes to reviews the cowboys (and girls) who do things wrong but fast get better reviews because they get more done. Nuclear labs kill the people inside them at worst. Bio labs ... Well there's a reason why I think covid was the worst lab accident in human history.
- bumby 4y ago
  I’m not sure why you’ve been downvoted but this is a very prevalent attitude at hazardous facilities that are run by contractors. In particular, when the hazards are relatively low probability events and there are perverse incentives to roll the dice in the name of productivity. In a previous job in a hazardous facility, I’ve had very senior managers sit me down to tell me I don’t want to get the reputation for slowing things down by enforcing safety rules. I’m personally glad I’ve moved on with my career.
  - rdtwo 4y ago
    I think this is universal. The safety rules go so overboard that the critical ones get ignored with the stupid ones because employees don’t know which ones are the important ones. If everything is critical nothing is
    - bumby 4y ago
      This is very true. At a certain point, management needs to be willing to prioritize what safety requirements they are willing to endorse. The worst of both worlds is when leadership isn't willing to formally do so, but push an informal culture to ignore safety rules. It’s worse when it’s low probability but high severity risks. Sometimes something that is critical but low probability is more easily conflated with not being a legitimate risk. I dog think it’s telling that the article made it seem like the entire safety team quit en-masse
    - s0rce 4y ago
      This is major issue in my experience. Even introducing new benign chemicals can lead to lengthy reviews and project delays. I've also found that when I've asked directly how to safely handle something the safety people don't have an answer and end up with an extremely conservative approach that doesn't appear to be driven by actual risks (severity or probability).
    - BurningFrog 4y ago
      Classic "boy who cried wolf" syndrome. Also: “The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable.” ― Frédéric Bastiat
      - bumby 4y ago
        Counterpoint is that it's easy to dismiss a requirement when one doesn't fully understand it. Sometimes that takes less work to dismiss it rather than spending the effort to remove one's ignorance. Particularly in safety critical systems, it's probably prudent to assume there is a good intent first.
        jackvalentine 4y ago
        A classic one for home food preserving - some of the old recipes have steps that ‘don’t make sense’ but are crucial to food safety. Without them you might get botulism.
        4y ago
  - justinator 4y ago
    > I’m not sure why you’ve been downvoted Because "Covid 19 was engineered in a lab, then released" is nothing but a conspiracy theory.
    - tormeh 4y ago
      Conspiracy to cover up a mistake, maybe. There's no way to know, but given what is known about the origin of covid it's too plausible to just dismiss. We'll just have to live with the ambiguity.
    - leetrout 4y ago
      You jumped to some conclusions. OP said a lab accident. This could have been from an animal sample. Everyone seems to conflate lab leak with lab manufacture (or jump further to purposeful leak).
      - chihuahua 4y ago
        In addition to what you said (conflating lab leak with various things), there's another factor: Early on, the people who were funding the gain-of-function research at WIV put out a statement that considering possibility of lab leak == racism, and some people are still following those orders. There is no proof that it was or was not a lab leak, engineered or not, intentional or not. Whatever evidence there was has been destroyed.
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      There's a difference between escape and release. Not sure why you put words in my mouth.
      - justinator 4y ago
        I'm certainly not putting words in your mouth. You asked why you were being downvoted. I mentioned that there's a conspiracy theory along the lines of what you're saying. In no way did I say, "YOU'RE propagating a conspiracy theory". Just that there is a thing, and that thing is in some way influencing people's opinion on your comment. That does not imply intent.
- bboygravity 4y ago
  > Well there's a reason why I think covid was the worst lab accident in human history. And that reason likely has to do more with the fact that you're not a virologist nor someone who has a deep understanding of virus evolution and how Sars-CoV2 does what it does.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    If there's a big explosion in Los Alamos I'm going to think it's a nuclear explosion even if everyone else says it's a meteor. Balance of probability is that the biological weapons lab was doing biological weapons research and it got out. Without a non virologist investigating what happened there this is the same level of believability as cops clearing themselves of wrong doing in an afternoon.
    - dreamcompiler 4y ago
      The probability of a nuclear explosion at Los Alamos is vanishingly close to zero for lots of reasons. The probability of a nuclear accident at Los Alamos is pretty much 1.0, since several have happened there before, and recently.
      - thrown_22 4y ago
        That's not what I said. I said that if an explosion similar to the Chelyabinsk meteor happened there I'd need _extreme_ proof that it wasn't a nuclear explosion.
borski 4y ago
I didn’t for a second believe someone working in a nuclear lab would have brought together that many high purity plutonium rods in close proximity, but apparently I was wrong.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
concordDance 4y ago
> do people really just not care about their lives? Nuclear in general is very over regulated and over safety conscious. This leads to many pointless or overly cautious rules, which slow things down and lead to people ignoring ALL the rules, including th important ones.

by ars 4y ago

thrown_22 4y ago

There is a very gung ho culture in labs about safety. It slows you down to do things right and when it comes to reviews the cowboys (and girls) who do things wrong but fast get better reviews because they get more done. Nuclear labs kill the people inside them at worst. Bio labs ... Well there's a reason why I think covid was the worst lab accident in human history.

bumby 4y ago
I’m not sure why you’ve been downvoted but this is a very prevalent attitude at hazardous facilities that are run by contractors. In particular, when the hazards are relatively low probability events and there are perverse incentives to roll the dice in the name of productivity. In a previous job in a hazardous facility, I’ve had very senior managers sit me down to tell me I don’t want to get the reputation for slowing things down by enforcing safety rules. I’m personally glad I’ve moved on with my career.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  I think this is universal. The safety rules go so overboard that the critical ones get ignored with the stupid ones because employees don’t know which ones are the important ones. If everything is critical nothing is
  - bumby 4y ago
    This is very true. At a certain point, management needs to be willing to prioritize what safety requirements they are willing to endorse. The worst of both worlds is when leadership isn't willing to formally do so, but push an informal culture to ignore safety rules. It’s worse when it’s low probability but high severity risks. Sometimes something that is critical but low probability is more easily conflated with not being a legitimate risk. I dog think it’s telling that the article made it seem like the entire safety team quit en-masse
  - s0rce 4y ago
    This is major issue in my experience. Even introducing new benign chemicals can lead to lengthy reviews and project delays. I've also found that when I've asked directly how to safely handle something the safety people don't have an answer and end up with an extremely conservative approach that doesn't appear to be driven by actual risks (severity or probability).
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    Classic "boy who cried wolf" syndrome. Also: “The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable.” ― Frédéric Bastiat
    - bumby 4y ago
      Counterpoint is that it's easy to dismiss a requirement when one doesn't fully understand it. Sometimes that takes less work to dismiss it rather than spending the effort to remove one's ignorance. Particularly in safety critical systems, it's probably prudent to assume there is a good intent first.
      - jackvalentine 4y ago
        A classic one for home food preserving - some of the old recipes have steps that ‘don’t make sense’ but are crucial to food safety. Without them you might get botulism.
        4y ago
- justinator 4y ago
  > I’m not sure why you’ve been downvoted Because "Covid 19 was engineered in a lab, then released" is nothing but a conspiracy theory.
  - tormeh 4y ago
    Conspiracy to cover up a mistake, maybe. There's no way to know, but given what is known about the origin of covid it's too plausible to just dismiss. We'll just have to live with the ambiguity.
  - leetrout 4y ago
    You jumped to some conclusions. OP said a lab accident. This could have been from an animal sample. Everyone seems to conflate lab leak with lab manufacture (or jump further to purposeful leak).
    - chihuahua 4y ago
      In addition to what you said (conflating lab leak with various things), there's another factor: Early on, the people who were funding the gain-of-function research at WIV put out a statement that considering possibility of lab leak == racism, and some people are still following those orders. There is no proof that it was or was not a lab leak, engineered or not, intentional or not. Whatever evidence there was has been destroyed.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    There's a difference between escape and release. Not sure why you put words in my mouth.
    - justinator 4y ago
      I'm certainly not putting words in your mouth. You asked why you were being downvoted. I mentioned that there's a conspiracy theory along the lines of what you're saying. In no way did I say, "YOU'RE propagating a conspiracy theory". Just that there is a thing, and that thing is in some way influencing people's opinion on your comment. That does not imply intent.
bboygravity 4y ago
> Well there's a reason why I think covid was the worst lab accident in human history. And that reason likely has to do more with the fact that you're not a virologist nor someone who has a deep understanding of virus evolution and how Sars-CoV2 does what it does.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  If there's a big explosion in Los Alamos I'm going to think it's a nuclear explosion even if everyone else says it's a meteor. Balance of probability is that the biological weapons lab was doing biological weapons research and it got out. Without a non virologist investigating what happened there this is the same level of believability as cops clearing themselves of wrong doing in an afternoon.
  - dreamcompiler 4y ago
    The probability of a nuclear explosion at Los Alamos is vanishingly close to zero for lots of reasons. The probability of a nuclear accident at Los Alamos is pretty much 1.0, since several have happened there before, and recently.
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      That's not what I said. I said that if an explosion similar to the Chelyabinsk meteor happened there I'd need _extreme_ proof that it wasn't a nuclear explosion.

borski 4y ago

I didn’t for a second believe someone working in a nuclear lab would have brought together that many high purity plutonium rods in close proximity, but apparently I was wrong.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

concordDance 4y ago

> do people really just not care about their lives? Nuclear in general is very over regulated and over safety conscious. This leads to many pointless or overly cautious rules, which slow things down and lead to people ignoring ALL the rules, including th important ones.