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What are you talking about? This isnt the first earthquake in the region, it s a story that goes back thousands of years of written history. Most countries in t

by seydor 4y ago

What are you talking about? This isnt the first earthquake in the region, it s a story that goes back thousands of years of written history. Most countries in the area have changed their codes and now build houses that are very resistant to earthquakes. Earthquakes happen all the time, (arguably not as big) but rarely you hear about such damages. Turkey has a problem of bad building, like what happened with the Izmir earthquake in 2020

roenxi 4y ago
Which presumably is no secret and which would have been considered in the decision making - indeed, everyone involved would have known that the next earthquake would have worse consequences. The issue I have - and it is in your comment as well as elsewhere - is you are using an argument that this situation was predictable. That isn't enough. You have to argue that the costs in this disaster outweighed the benefits of a lighter building code. My guess would be that they probably do, the death count is quite high. But that is no excuse for sloppy, knee-jerk thinking. We need less of that.
- seydor 4y ago
  It's not knee jerk thinking. Even turkey has nominally strict building codes because of all the previous earthquakes. And it s not like it s running out of land to build. Nobody in this region thinks it could possibly be a good thing to skirt building codes. Earthquakes are frequent enough to be constant reminders of it
  - roenxi 4y ago
    Erdogan has previously appeared in videos where he proudly boasted about how he allowed people to skirt building codes. I think there are a lot of people who think it could possibly be a good thing. Otherwise he wouldn't have been giving speeches about it. He's possibly misjudged the cost-benefits; it'd hardly be the first time people have made big mistakes. But we should at least have solid evidence of that before jumping to conclusions.

by seydor 4y ago

roenxi 4y ago

Which presumably is no secret and which would have been considered in the decision making - indeed, everyone involved would have known that the next earthquake would have worse consequences. The issue I have - and it is in your comment as well as elsewhere - is you are using an argument that this situation was predictable. That isn't enough. You have to argue that the costs in this disaster outweighed the benefits of a lighter building code. My guess would be that they probably do, the death count is quite high. But that is no excuse for sloppy, knee-jerk thinking. We need less of that.

seydor 4y ago
It's not knee jerk thinking. Even turkey has nominally strict building codes because of all the previous earthquakes. And it s not like it s running out of land to build. Nobody in this region thinks it could possibly be a good thing to skirt building codes. Earthquakes are frequent enough to be constant reminders of it
- roenxi 4y ago
  Erdogan has previously appeared in videos where he proudly boasted about how he allowed people to skirt building codes. I think there are a lot of people who think it could possibly be a good thing. Otherwise he wouldn't have been giving speeches about it. He's possibly misjudged the cost-benefits; it'd hardly be the first time people have made big mistakes. But we should at least have solid evidence of that before jumping to conclusions.