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Engineers, at least at that point in history, paid the consequences of their failures. It’s not about competence, it’s about “skin in the game”. For further re

Engineers, at least at that point in history, paid the consequences of their failures. It’s not about competence, it’s about “skin in the game”. For further reading, Nassim Taleb wrote a whole book on this idea.

makeitdouble 3y ago
That doesn't ring true to me, looking at Amazon it doesn't look to me like their warehouse system engineers are paying the consequences of their system, while the OSHA is some corrupt/carefree player. Also, looking from a step behing at our exchange, you are arguing that people need skin in the game to be fair and make weighted decisions, pointing at a writer who stopped having any skin in the game to write books and go on interviews and become an influencer.
zokier 3y ago
Dubious. The designer of River Dee bridge, Stephenson, faced inquest after the incident and was cleared of any charges. Stephenson continued to have successful career as engineer and also in politics as MP.
jimbokun 3y ago
Funny, I thought it was the people who died or were seriously injured due to the bridge collapse who paid the highest price for the engineers’ failures.
- chii 3y ago
  But they're already dead, so future events do not affect them, as they are no longer in the iterated game of life. The engineer, on the other hand, continues playing the iterated game of life, and so their reputation does matter (to themselves at least). Therefore, by making sure that any bridges that collapse has social stigma painted against those who designed and/or built it, it would encourage proper engineering even if there's no third party at the time to certify it.
  - newjersey 3y ago
    Makes me think of the portal song > for the people who are still alive The test subjects who are already dead don’t matter. GlaDOS, on the other hand, must continue to make choices in which experiments and test subjects will deliver the best bang for the buck.

makeitdouble 3y ago

That doesn't ring true to me, looking at Amazon it doesn't look to me like their warehouse system engineers are paying the consequences of their system, while the OSHA is some corrupt/carefree player. Also, looking from a step behing at our exchange, you are arguing that people need skin in the game to be fair and make weighted decisions, pointing at a writer who stopped having any skin in the game to write books and go on interviews and become an influencer.

zokier 3y ago

Dubious. The designer of River Dee bridge, Stephenson, faced inquest after the incident and was cleared of any charges. Stephenson continued to have successful career as engineer and also in politics as MP.

jimbokun 3y ago

Funny, I thought it was the people who died or were seriously injured due to the bridge collapse who paid the highest price for the engineers’ failures.

chii 3y ago
But they're already dead, so future events do not affect them, as they are no longer in the iterated game of life. The engineer, on the other hand, continues playing the iterated game of life, and so their reputation does matter (to themselves at least). Therefore, by making sure that any bridges that collapse has social stigma painted against those who designed and/or built it, it would encourage proper engineering even if there's no third party at the time to certify it.
- newjersey 3y ago
  Makes me think of the portal song > for the people who are still alive The test subjects who are already dead don’t matter. GlaDOS, on the other hand, must continue to make choices in which experiments and test subjects will deliver the best bang for the buck.