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> The disdain on this post is baffling to me, though. You don't have to search hard to find cases of this feature providing tangible help to people. I know you
by jstarfish 3y ago
> The disdain on this post is baffling to me, though. You don't have to search hard to find cases of this feature providing tangible help to people.
I know you mean well, but if this is that hard for you to understand then you aren't even trying to consider responders' wasted time or effort. Until the majority of automated calls are verifiable emergencies, this is adding more noise than signal. The handful of times it gets it right puts it a step above a broken clock in terms of usefulness. For what response costs in human capital, it needs to do better than occasionally getting it right. "If it saves one life..." isn't good enough when you're driving responders to apathy and exhaustion; others will suffer from their lack of attention.
Really, welfare checks borne from vaguely-substantiated malfunctions are a job for friends, not emergency services.
- taeric 3y agoI confess that I don't know that you mean well, sadly. For one, you haven't established that the majority are not verifiable emergencies. You are asserting that it can't possibly be the case that this is providing real value, as it is. You also have not established that it causes a substantial increase in costs for most municipalities. Again, quoting how much a search and rescue can cost up to, in a place with many ski resorts, does little to actually convince me of good faith discussions here. For places that have a convention or festival, I can already assume that they will have an increase in everything because of that. Per this very story, they were emphatically not overwhelmed. It was an increase, and is notable such that it is best if it is addressed. But I see very little ways of framing the doom and gloom posts here other than FUD.