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This demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of how the FAA actually operates in its efforts to address “risk.” It’s far more theatre via bureaucracy and paperwor

by JCM9 4y ago

This demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of how the FAA actually operates in its efforts to address “risk.” It’s far more theatre via bureaucracy and paperwork than actual proven engineering efforts that demonstrably reduce risk.

gnarbarian 4y ago
you nailed it. Plus the FAA is unable to even perceive the fact that this culture is counterproductive to the goal nor would they know how to address the problem in any way other than adding more layers of paperwork and bureaucracy.
btown 4y ago
Is this conjecture or based on documented shortcomings of their approach though? Much of this paperwork, especially if created in response to NTSB crash post-mortems, could very well be examples of https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/ https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/ - is there reason to believe otherwise?
haswell 4y ago
This is a sweeping claim with really nothing to back it up. Are you saying this from an inside knowledge of the FAA, or is this just an opinion? On the surface, the relative safety of air travel and the lack of major stoppages over a span of 22 years seems like a major counter example. You’re making this statement emphatically and authoritatively, though, so I’m curious to understand where that certainty comes from and how it accounts for the other publicly visible properties of the FAA and air travel.
- njovin 4y ago
  Two examples: 1. The FAA basically handed their risk-management keys over to Boeing when authorizing the 737-MAX, contributing to those deaths (https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-boeing-and-the-faa-created-the-737-max-catastrophe https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-boeing-and...) 2. The FAA's pilot medical vetting process, while thorough, is behind the times. There are people who took ADHD medicine in high school that are unable to obtain a medical certificate due to the FAA's overly-strict policies on prescription drugs. There are current pilots with serious mental issues who are afraid to see a doctor about them due to fear of losing their medical license (https://www.flyingmag.com/why-pilots-dont-want-to-talk-about-mental-health-and-why-they-should/ https://www.flyingmag.com/why-pilots-dont-want-to-talk-about...).
  - haswell 4y ago
    > 1. The FAA basically handed their risk-management keys over to Boeing when authorizing the 737-MAX, contributing to those deaths Couldn’t this also be interpreted as: when the FAA holds the keys, disasters like the 737-MAX tend not to happen? Obviously this raises questions about how that decision came about in the first place, but as an example, it seems counterproductive to your point, i.e. evidence that shifting away from some long standing policies directly led to harm, implying the original policies might have been better ones. In a thread that seems eager to move fast and break things, this seems like a big problem, and would seem to indicate the need for a return to founding principles, not the opposite. > 2. The FAA's pilot medical vetting process This is an interesting one for sure, but also seems like an incredibly complex issue. Have there been studies about the safety of operating machinery while on those drugs that would obviate the need for a policy change? The potential risk averted by such a policy would need to be weighed against the negative impacts of the 2nd order undesirable behaviors - obviously it’s bad that the policy discourages much needed mental health support, but how bad this is depends entirely on how effective the initial screening process is. I’m not saying these mental health policies shouldn’t be changed, but neither do they seem to have obvious or measurably better alternatives at the moment. And taken in the context of the original claim - that people are grossly misunderstanding the FAA and all of this is theater - they seem like weak examples to use as evidence of broad organizational failure.
  - tibbydudeza 4y ago
    The FAA was gutted in the name of deregulation and competition - you might want to ask the GOP what happens when you don't have adequate govt oversight and regulation. Two planes crashed due to a design flaw - hundreds of people killed and one manufacturer and model forever tarnished like McDonald Douglass and their DC-10.
    - DonHopkins 4y ago
      And you might also want to ask the GOP why Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 air traffic controllers and banned them from federal service for life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_(1968)#August_1981_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Contr... >On August 5, following the PATCO workers' refusal to return to work, the Reagan administration fired the 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored the order, and banned them from federal service for life. In the wake of the strike and mass firings, the FAA was faced with the difficult task of hiring and training enough controllers to replace those that had been fired. Under normal conditions, it took three years to train new controllers. Until replacements could be trained, the vacant positions were temporarily filled with a mix of non-participating controllers, supervisors, staff personnel, some non-rated personnel, military controllers, and controllers transferred temporarily from other facilities. PATCO was decertified by the Federal Labor Relations Authority on October 22, 1981. The decision was appealed but to no avail, and attempts to use the courts to reverse the firings proved fruitless. My late friend Ron Reisman worked at NASA Ames Research Center on air traffic control and flight safety, and he hired up a bunch of the professional air traffic controllers who Reagan fired, and taught them to program. Because it's much easier to teach an air traffic controller how to program, than it is to teach a programmer how to control air traffic. And we have them to thank for how safe the air traffic control system is today. https://www.nasa.gov/50th/Folklife/biosPropulsion.html https://www.nasa.gov/50th/Folklife/biosPropulsion.html >Ron Reisman has BA in Philosophy and Classical Greek, and an MS in Computer Science. He joined NASA Ames Research Center in 1988 as one of the original members of the Center Tracon Automation System development team. Since the late 1990s he has worked on traffic flow management research and development. He is currently supporting the Next Generation Air Traffic System research. I saw him give an earlier version of this talk at the November 1989 Usenix Montery Graphics Conference, where he discussed training air traffic controllers to program, and he subsequently gave me a tour of the flight simulators and air traffic control systems at NASA Ames: https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/usenix02/usenix02.pdf https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/usenix02/usenix02.pdf >INTRODUCTION TO AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS >Ron Reisman and James Murphy, NASA Ames Research Center, and Rob Savoye, Seneca Software >This introduction to air traffic control systems summarizes the operational characteristics of the principal Air Traffic Management (ATM) domains (i.e., en route, terminal area, surface control, and strategic traffic flow management) and the challenges of designing ATM decision support tools. The Traffic Flow Automation System (TFAS), a version of the Center TRACON Automation System (CTAS), will be examined. TFAS achieves portability across platforms (Solaris, HP/UX, and Linux) by adherence to software standards (ANSI, ISO, POSIX). Software engineering issues related to design, code reuse, portability, performance, and implementation are discussed. Based on what I know about Ron's and other people's diligent methodological work on air traffic control and safety, I feel extremely safe and confident flying, and I find it insulting to his memory and the legacy of his work when the armchair architect ex-Facebook employees on this thread (and the GOP) glibly and patronizingly implore the FAA to "move fast and break things", as if they had no idea how many lives and fortunes are at stake. Here's a video of Ron showing Marvin Minsky the flight simulator, an early AR headset, and the hydraulic lifts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOKENF_-z8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOKENF_-z8Y I previously mentioned his earlier work making Apple ]['s talk with dolphins, and his thoughts on AI and dolphin intelligence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32039126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32039126 To answer "What is AI?" you first have to answer "What is I?" Check out the Apple ][ at the Dolphin Research Center in 1982, and Ron Reisman’s thoughts about dolphin intelligence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWHCTNztnwQ&t=392s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWHCTNztnwQ&t=392s “It’s gotten to the point that I never say anything about intelligence in general. I don’t know what it means any more. I used to. But then I started trying to test it. And if you think about it for a while, you don’t know what it is.” -Ron Reisman
neilv 4y ago
On what is your own understanding based?

by JCM9 4y ago

gnarbarian 4y ago

you nailed it. Plus the FAA is unable to even perceive the fact that this culture is counterproductive to the goal nor would they know how to address the problem in any way other than adding more layers of paperwork and bureaucracy.

btown 4y ago

Is this conjecture or based on documented shortcomings of their approach though? Much of this paperwork, especially if created in response to NTSB crash post-mortems, could very well be examples of https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/ https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/ - is there reason to believe otherwise?

haswell 4y ago

This is a sweeping claim with really nothing to back it up. Are you saying this from an inside knowledge of the FAA, or is this just an opinion? On the surface, the relative safety of air travel and the lack of major stoppages over a span of 22 years seems like a major counter example. You’re making this statement emphatically and authoritatively, though, so I’m curious to understand where that certainty comes from and how it accounts for the other publicly visible properties of the FAA and air travel.

njovin 4y ago
Two examples: 1. The FAA basically handed their risk-management keys over to Boeing when authorizing the 737-MAX, contributing to those deaths (https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-boeing-and-the-faa-created-the-737-max-catastrophe https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-boeing-and...) 2. The FAA's pilot medical vetting process, while thorough, is behind the times. There are people who took ADHD medicine in high school that are unable to obtain a medical certificate due to the FAA's overly-strict policies on prescription drugs. There are current pilots with serious mental issues who are afraid to see a doctor about them due to fear of losing their medical license (https://www.flyingmag.com/why-pilots-dont-want-to-talk-about-mental-health-and-why-they-should/ https://www.flyingmag.com/why-pilots-dont-want-to-talk-about...).
- haswell 4y ago
  > 1. The FAA basically handed their risk-management keys over to Boeing when authorizing the 737-MAX, contributing to those deaths Couldn’t this also be interpreted as: when the FAA holds the keys, disasters like the 737-MAX tend not to happen? Obviously this raises questions about how that decision came about in the first place, but as an example, it seems counterproductive to your point, i.e. evidence that shifting away from some long standing policies directly led to harm, implying the original policies might have been better ones. In a thread that seems eager to move fast and break things, this seems like a big problem, and would seem to indicate the need for a return to founding principles, not the opposite. > 2. The FAA's pilot medical vetting process This is an interesting one for sure, but also seems like an incredibly complex issue. Have there been studies about the safety of operating machinery while on those drugs that would obviate the need for a policy change? The potential risk averted by such a policy would need to be weighed against the negative impacts of the 2nd order undesirable behaviors - obviously it’s bad that the policy discourages much needed mental health support, but how bad this is depends entirely on how effective the initial screening process is. I’m not saying these mental health policies shouldn’t be changed, but neither do they seem to have obvious or measurably better alternatives at the moment. And taken in the context of the original claim - that people are grossly misunderstanding the FAA and all of this is theater - they seem like weak examples to use as evidence of broad organizational failure.
- tibbydudeza 4y ago
  The FAA was gutted in the name of deregulation and competition - you might want to ask the GOP what happens when you don't have adequate govt oversight and regulation. Two planes crashed due to a design flaw - hundreds of people killed and one manufacturer and model forever tarnished like McDonald Douglass and their DC-10.
  - DonHopkins 4y ago
    And you might also want to ask the GOP why Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 air traffic controllers and banned them from federal service for life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_(1968)#August_1981_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Contr... >On August 5, following the PATCO workers' refusal to return to work, the Reagan administration fired the 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored the order, and banned them from federal service for life. In the wake of the strike and mass firings, the FAA was faced with the difficult task of hiring and training enough controllers to replace those that had been fired. Under normal conditions, it took three years to train new controllers. Until replacements could be trained, the vacant positions were temporarily filled with a mix of non-participating controllers, supervisors, staff personnel, some non-rated personnel, military controllers, and controllers transferred temporarily from other facilities. PATCO was decertified by the Federal Labor Relations Authority on October 22, 1981. The decision was appealed but to no avail, and attempts to use the courts to reverse the firings proved fruitless. My late friend Ron Reisman worked at NASA Ames Research Center on air traffic control and flight safety, and he hired up a bunch of the professional air traffic controllers who Reagan fired, and taught them to program. Because it's much easier to teach an air traffic controller how to program, than it is to teach a programmer how to control air traffic. And we have them to thank for how safe the air traffic control system is today. https://www.nasa.gov/50th/Folklife/biosPropulsion.html https://www.nasa.gov/50th/Folklife/biosPropulsion.html >Ron Reisman has BA in Philosophy and Classical Greek, and an MS in Computer Science. He joined NASA Ames Research Center in 1988 as one of the original members of the Center Tracon Automation System development team. Since the late 1990s he has worked on traffic flow management research and development. He is currently supporting the Next Generation Air Traffic System research. I saw him give an earlier version of this talk at the November 1989 Usenix Montery Graphics Conference, where he discussed training air traffic controllers to program, and he subsequently gave me a tour of the flight simulators and air traffic control systems at NASA Ames: https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/usenix02/usenix02.pdf https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/usenix02/usenix02.pdf >INTRODUCTION TO AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS >Ron Reisman and James Murphy, NASA Ames Research Center, and Rob Savoye, Seneca Software >This introduction to air traffic control systems summarizes the operational characteristics of the principal Air Traffic Management (ATM) domains (i.e., en route, terminal area, surface control, and strategic traffic flow management) and the challenges of designing ATM decision support tools. The Traffic Flow Automation System (TFAS), a version of the Center TRACON Automation System (CTAS), will be examined. TFAS achieves portability across platforms (Solaris, HP/UX, and Linux) by adherence to software standards (ANSI, ISO, POSIX). Software engineering issues related to design, code reuse, portability, performance, and implementation are discussed. Based on what I know about Ron's and other people's diligent methodological work on air traffic control and safety, I feel extremely safe and confident flying, and I find it insulting to his memory and the legacy of his work when the armchair architect ex-Facebook employees on this thread (and the GOP) glibly and patronizingly implore the FAA to "move fast and break things", as if they had no idea how many lives and fortunes are at stake. Here's a video of Ron showing Marvin Minsky the flight simulator, an early AR headset, and the hydraulic lifts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOKENF_-z8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOKENF_-z8Y I previously mentioned his earlier work making Apple ]['s talk with dolphins, and his thoughts on AI and dolphin intelligence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32039126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32039126 To answer "What is AI?" you first have to answer "What is I?" Check out the Apple ][ at the Dolphin Research Center in 1982, and Ron Reisman’s thoughts about dolphin intelligence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWHCTNztnwQ&t=392s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWHCTNztnwQ&t=392s “It’s gotten to the point that I never say anything about intelligence in general. I don’t know what it means any more. I used to. But then I started trying to test it. And if you think about it for a while, you don’t know what it is.” -Ron Reisman

neilv 4y ago

On what is your own understanding based?