5 ms·

Damn, if only we didn't have to build them safely we could make them so cheaply.

sonotathrowaway 3y ago
We build planes safely, but those same parts are 3x the cost. Safety isn’t the reason why it’s more expensive.
willis936 3y ago
Safety and bureaucracy are orthogonal. Bureaucracy is a slowing force, which is sold as being correlated with safety. The more layers of abstraction needlessly added, the more likely there will be systems engineering failures.
- bumby 3y ago
  >more layers of abstraction needlessly added I think you're betraying your bias here with the added term "needlessly". There is some (maybe even most) bureaucracy that is inefficiently applied, for sure. But it is meant to address some risk. Maybe it's a risk that you (personally) don't care about, or aren't even cognizant of, and that's when it becomes easy to declare it "needless." We should be looking to streamline our risk mitigation and align it with risks that the public cares about, not throw it out altogether.
  - willis936 3y ago
    You're betraying your bias by insinuating I suggested throwing out risk mitigation. I advocated for streamlined risk mitigation by highlighting the risk of unnecessary complexity.
    - bumby 3y ago
      Maybe you can point me to where you advocated for risk mitigation. Because you seemed to imply bureaucracy is sold as risk-mitigation under the mistaken assumption that it correlates with safety. Did I read it incorrectly and you are actually saying there is a truly positive correlation between safety and bureaucracy? Or maybe you have an opinion on what we should replace the current version with?
    - adrianN 3y ago
      Now you only need to get expert consensus on which parts of the complexity are unnecessary.
      - bumby 3y ago
        That sounds an awful lot like industry standards and codes, which are often eschewed as the very bureaucracy the OP was railing against.
      - kjkjadksj 3y ago
        A true expert can streamline their industry every time. Simply because most people who make decisions on process are not experts in the relevant field, but expert administrators who often lazily apply existing policies to new concepts that they never got the training to understand or put into context. Just look at any institutional review board: the breadth their expertise is always smaller than the relevant topics they will have to rule upon at the institution, and often that leads to a certain level of consternation, misplaced understanding of risk, and overall higher levels of inefficiency.
        adrianN 3y ago
        I have worked in a highly regulated industry before. I found the regulations that concerned me (safety critical software) to be quite good and rather too lax than too strict. I would be surprised if you could streamline nuclear power plant regulations by a lot without using losing safety.
        djur 3y ago
        OK, so then we just need to figure out how to identify a true expert and we're off to the races.
the8472 3y ago
They are subject to a regulatory ratchet that almost guarantees that you won't make a profit. I.e. if a new safety measure becomes "economically feasible" because you increased cost efficiency somewhere else then regulators would adjust their calculations in the future and make additional requirements because they would now be feasible. This can even lead to requirements changing during the construction time of a plant and require expensive retrofits. https://freopp.org/rethinking-u-s-nuclear-energy-regulation-7639c7e88642 https://freopp.org/rethinking-u-s-nuclear-energy-regulation-...
lmm 3y ago
Renewables kill orders of magnitude more people (just look at how many die from falling when installing wind turbines, it's not pretty) and render orders of magnitude more land uninhabitable. We have ludicrous double standards when it comes to safety.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  I think these are baldfaced lies, especially the first claim. Justify, please.
  - lmm 3y ago
    First google result: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... . (Most renewable production is still hydro, so yes, it really is over 10x more deaths from renewables).
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      You explicitly said wind turbines, which your own reference shows are not "orders of magnitude" more dangerous. Thanks for destroying your own claim.
      - lmm 3y ago
        I said "Renewables kill orders of magnitude more people" and I was right. My post is right there, lol, ironic that you wanted to talk about "baldfaced lies".

We build planes safely, but those same parts are 3x the cost. Safety isn’t the reason why it’s more expensive.

Safety and bureaucracy are orthogonal. Bureaucracy is a slowing force, which is sold as being correlated with safety. The more layers of abstraction needlessly added, the more likely there will be systems engineering failures.

bumby 3y ago
>more layers of abstraction needlessly added I think you're betraying your bias here with the added term "needlessly". There is some (maybe even most) bureaucracy that is inefficiently applied, for sure. But it is meant to address some risk. Maybe it's a risk that you (personally) don't care about, or aren't even cognizant of, and that's when it becomes easy to declare it "needless." We should be looking to streamline our risk mitigation and align it with risks that the public cares about, not throw it out altogether.
- willis936 3y ago
  You're betraying your bias by insinuating I suggested throwing out risk mitigation. I advocated for streamlined risk mitigation by highlighting the risk of unnecessary complexity.
  - bumby 3y ago
    Maybe you can point me to where you advocated for risk mitigation. Because you seemed to imply bureaucracy is sold as risk-mitigation under the mistaken assumption that it correlates with safety. Did I read it incorrectly and you are actually saying there is a truly positive correlation between safety and bureaucracy? Or maybe you have an opinion on what we should replace the current version with?
  - adrianN 3y ago
    Now you only need to get expert consensus on which parts of the complexity are unnecessary.
    - bumby 3y ago
      That sounds an awful lot like industry standards and codes, which are often eschewed as the very bureaucracy the OP was railing against.
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      A true expert can streamline their industry every time. Simply because most people who make decisions on process are not experts in the relevant field, but expert administrators who often lazily apply existing policies to new concepts that they never got the training to understand or put into context. Just look at any institutional review board: the breadth their expertise is always smaller than the relevant topics they will have to rule upon at the institution, and often that leads to a certain level of consternation, misplaced understanding of risk, and overall higher levels of inefficiency.
      - adrianN 3y ago
        I have worked in a highly regulated industry before. I found the regulations that concerned me (safety critical software) to be quite good and rather too lax than too strict. I would be surprised if you could streamline nuclear power plant regulations by a lot without using losing safety.
      - djur 3y ago
        OK, so then we just need to figure out how to identify a true expert and we're off to the races.

the8472 3y ago

They are subject to a regulatory ratchet that almost guarantees that you won't make a profit. I.e. if a new safety measure becomes "economically feasible" because you increased cost efficiency somewhere else then regulators would adjust their calculations in the future and make additional requirements because they would now be feasible. This can even lead to requirements changing during the construction time of a plant and require expensive retrofits. https://freopp.org/rethinking-u-s-nuclear-energy-regulation-7639c7e88642 https://freopp.org/rethinking-u-s-nuclear-energy-regulation-...

lmm 3y ago

Renewables kill orders of magnitude more people (just look at how many die from falling when installing wind turbines, it's not pretty) and render orders of magnitude more land uninhabitable. We have ludicrous double standards when it comes to safety.

pfdietz 3y ago
I think these are baldfaced lies, especially the first claim. Justify, please.
- lmm 3y ago
  First google result: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... . (Most renewable production is still hydro, so yes, it really is over 10x more deaths from renewables).
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    You explicitly said wind turbines, which your own reference shows are not "orders of magnitude" more dangerous. Thanks for destroying your own claim.
    - lmm 3y ago
      I said "Renewables kill orders of magnitude more people" and I was right. My post is right there, lol, ironic that you wanted to talk about "baldfaced lies".