5 ms·

It is worded funny in the quote. In the context of the entire article, the author is clearly saying that the "speed and and competitive pressure" are the casual

It is worded funny in the quote. In the context of the entire article, the author is clearly saying that the "speed and and competitive pressure" are the casual factor for it becoming unsafe (i.e., given the requirement of going fast by higher ups, it is necessary to be unsafe). So he's implying that if they weren't so focused on speed and competitive pressure it could be more safe. There's where I get "unnecessarily unsafe" from, because in the author's perspective it's not necessary to prioritize speed and competition over safety. My point is that I don't think it's obviously unsafe at all, or at least could use some statistics to support his argument that it is.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
There will always be risk/development tradeoff. You can play with the balance but the only way to bring it to zero is to stop development. That's not to say that improvements can't be made. The real question is how many of the injuries and deaths were preventable by following the guidelines that already exist, and are generally followed but not perfectly followed.
- duxup 4y ago
  In the main example sounds like they didn't follow the safety rules that already exist / should have been followed.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    I agree. If the majority of your business and industry is following the safety standards, then it shouldn't cost much time to increase compliance in a rare few occasions. This is why I don't think the argument that development is too fast holds water. On the other hand, if the company were flagrantly ignoring safety standards in their process, yes, it would slow it down.
kelnos 4y ago
Ah, I see, that makes sense. I agree with the author that it shouldn't be necessary to prioritize speed and competition over safety. The whole "will we get to X before country Y does" is IMO childish, dick-measuring nonsense, especially if getting there faster means more people have to die... because in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter all that much if humans "get to X" this year or next year or 5 years from now. At the within-one-country level, you can eliminate concerns about one company out-competing another (via unsafe practices) with regulation. Globally, sure, you can't mandate that another country slows down in order to be more safe, but I think the downsides of allowing another country to get there faster are overblown. If we look back at the US-Soviet space race during the Cold War, it doesn't seem all that clear to me that the US benefited all that much from being first to land on the moon. Consider that the Soviets won the first milestone in that race, and that many people don't even know that or have forgotten. And consider that, post-moon-landing, the space race was essentially over, and both the US and Soviets went on to focus more on military/intelligence and commercial applications for the ability to get things into Earth's orbit, and stay there. Sure, there were more moon landings after the first one, but I think while most people know who Neil Armstrong is, they couldn't name any of the people who landed on the moon in later missions. Hell, most people don't even remember that Collins flew with Armstrong, and I imagine there are quite a few who don't remember Aldrin landing as well on that trip. (How many people would actually recognize the name Gene Cernan, the last human's feet to touch the moon's surface? I hadn't heard of him until I just looked it up.) Yes, you can make the argument that the US got some big-time global bragging rights for making it first, and that certainly conferred some economic benefits, but I would argue that the US's economic prosperity after that point, as well as the Soviets' eventual decline, was pretty much baked in at that point, and would have happened regardless of what happened with the space race. So this is just a long-winded way for me to say that I don't think "getting there first" matters all that much, and that we should slow down and make sure all of this is safer. Sure, we're never going to eliminate all risk, and sending humans into space will number among the riskiest things we do for quite a while into the future, but there are levels of safety and unsafety that we should and shouldn't accept.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

There will always be risk/development tradeoff. You can play with the balance but the only way to bring it to zero is to stop development. That's not to say that improvements can't be made. The real question is how many of the injuries and deaths were preventable by following the guidelines that already exist, and are generally followed but not perfectly followed.

duxup 4y ago
In the main example sounds like they didn't follow the safety rules that already exist / should have been followed.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  I agree. If the majority of your business and industry is following the safety standards, then it shouldn't cost much time to increase compliance in a rare few occasions. This is why I don't think the argument that development is too fast holds water. On the other hand, if the company were flagrantly ignoring safety standards in their process, yes, it would slow it down.

kelnos 4y ago

Ah, I see, that makes sense. I agree with the author that it shouldn't be necessary to prioritize speed and competition over safety. The whole "will we get to X before country Y does" is IMO childish, dick-measuring nonsense, especially if getting there faster means more people have to die... because in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter all that much if humans "get to X" this year or next year or 5 years from now. At the within-one-country level, you can eliminate concerns about one company out-competing another (via unsafe practices) with regulation. Globally, sure, you can't mandate that another country slows down in order to be more safe, but I think the downsides of allowing another country to get there faster are overblown. If we look back at the US-Soviet space race during the Cold War, it doesn't seem all that clear to me that the US benefited all that much from being first to land on the moon. Consider that the Soviets won the first milestone in that race, and that many people don't even know that or have forgotten. And consider that, post-moon-landing, the space race was essentially over, and both the US and Soviets went on to focus more on military/intelligence and commercial applications for the ability to get things into Earth's orbit, and stay there. Sure, there were more moon landings after the first one, but I think while most people know who Neil Armstrong is, they couldn't name any of the people who landed on the moon in later missions. Hell, most people don't even remember that Collins flew with Armstrong, and I imagine there are quite a few who don't remember Aldrin landing as well on that trip. (How many people would actually recognize the name Gene Cernan, the last human's feet to touch the moon's surface? I hadn't heard of him until I just looked it up.) Yes, you can make the argument that the US got some big-time global bragging rights for making it first, and that certainly conferred some economic benefits, but I would argue that the US's economic prosperity after that point, as well as the Soviets' eventual decline, was pretty much baked in at that point, and would have happened regardless of what happened with the space race. So this is just a long-winded way for me to say that I don't think "getting there first" matters all that much, and that we should slow down and make sure all of this is safer. Sure, we're never going to eliminate all risk, and sending humans into space will number among the riskiest things we do for quite a while into the future, but there are levels of safety and unsafety that we should and shouldn't accept.