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Who would have thought that if you pile soil up in a tall pile as high and steep as you can, right next to a huge pit, then occasionally it might fall back into

Who would have thought that if you pile soil up in a tall pile as high and steep as you can, right next to a huge pit, then occasionally it might fall back into the pit... A 5 year old on the beach could tell you that...

walthamstow 3y ago
A 5 year old in a Welsh primary school could tell you even more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster
- Loughla 3y ago
  109 kids died in that. Holy shit. And the senior officials got off with a slap on the wrist. That reads like a complete failure of the government. Why did the right people not hang for that?
  - defrost 3y ago
    The people on the right at that time (UK 1966) didn't hang as they were of an effectively protected capitalist caste with no regulation to hold them to account. If you scroll down the wiki link you can see that the changes to the Mines and Quarries Act ultimately lead to things such as the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act (1974) which provided some teeth with which to bite the owners that cut corners, paid off inspectors, etc. Swings and roundabouts though, a little while later came the Miners' Strike of 1984-1985 which was easily one of the most bitter industrial disputes Britain has ever seen. a turning point in British history. Miners left their pits to fight the attempt of the Thatcher government to close the collieries, break the miners’ union and the labour movement in general, and open the way to a free market economy in which deregulated financial capitalism would be set free by the Big Bang of 1986. The full force of the police, the courts and the media were mobilised to defeat the miners, culminating with the battle of Orgreave on 18 June 1984. Thousands of miners were arrested, fined, imprisoned or sacked, some never to work again. https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/miners-strike-1984-5-oral-history https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/miners-strike-1984-5-oral-histo... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/27/40-years-miners-strike-long-shadow-uk-politics-pit-closures https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/27/40-yea... All part of the delicate balance between those many hordes wanting good wages and working conditions and those few that want all the profits.
    - londons_explore 3y ago
      In retrospect, it was a battle that didn't matter. There were no profits to be had on either side - mining is best done mostly by machines, and will always be undercut by places with cheap labour and lax environmental regulations. The UK would never be able to compete. And besides, by the 80's it was already becoming clear that coal wasn't the future.
      - defrost 3y ago
        You seem unfamiliar with mining. The UK and the US aren't really big players, the single largest market for mining stocks is the Toronto TSX by a long shot - many loosely commonwealth trans national companies (Australia, Canada, South Africa, etc) with Russian, Chinese, Brazilian partners, etc. Machines play a big part - Western Australia mines almost a billion tonner of iron ore alone per annum with a tiny population, but cheap labour and lax environmental regs don't play nearly as great a part as you might think. Long term stability on 20 to 50 year time scales is pretty desirable on projects with forward capital investments of 300+ million dollars, high skill levels and good wages improve success rates, the larger mining companies have been trending more and more toward being accountable with respect to populations affected and post operation rennovation .. although that's a shift from don't care and never so .. <shrug> From a political "how society works" PoV the mining strikes and Thatcher push backs weren't about the coal either .. it was a reflection on how the new neoliberal 80s Tories intended to deal with those not aligned with their vision. There were other directions to turn labour forces of the 80s toward, but the vision as such for that time was propert development pyramids, fintech, and all that jazz. Better to be a barrow boy in The City than a gay dancing coal miner.
    - mikhailfranco 3y ago
      So offer the mine to the miners, if they each put up GBP nx100k capital. See if they really want the risk of loss/mortgage/debt in return for a job. Perhaps they know something beneficial that management doesn't? Workers can be capitalists if they know the business and want to take a risk. Get the responses, end of story. Yet it led to a huge (literal) battle? It was all political: an attack on the gov by the communist miners' union, backed by the Labour Party. It was never about economics, which were obviously terminal. Everybody knew that, on both sides.
  - red_admiral 3y ago
    The government outsourced managing Aberfan and most other mines to a National Coal Board. The tribunal who investigated the disaster was very critical of said board, but it wasn't the done thing in those days to go after senior officials. Indeed, the disaster was one of the main inputs that led to the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the act under which senior officials nowadays can be (and sometimes are) prosecuted for negligence leading to deaths.
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  The Crown, Season 3 Episode 3, tells this story.
RealityVoid 3y ago
I find comments like this not very helpful. I mean, sure tall things fall, but you have presumably competent people working with these things, people that understand risks and do this all their life. Certainly people that know more than you and me. Somehow, they failed on this, and there's lessons to learn here, but smug "hurr-durr, don't stack things tall" is not it.
- selcuka 3y ago
  > you have presumably competent people working with these things, people that understand risks and do this all their life. I don't know if you are Turkish, but unfortunately this statement is not a given in Turkey, mostly because of corruption, nepotism, and a general lack of respect for knowledge and experience. I personally know some of the people who built this mine.
  - gus_massa 3y ago
    I'm not sure about Turkey, but everywhere it's common to fire the guy that is worried about security and doesn't want to cut corners. Even if they are competent, some people must choose eating or safety.
- buremba 3y ago
  When you consider the costs of "doing it the right way", the reasoning becomes much more complex no matter how competent people are. In addition to all the corruption, we also culturally tend to be more risk-tolerant when it comes to safety IMO.
- bboygravity 3y ago
  Just world fallacy
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  > "hurr-durr, don't stack things tall" This is a rude and uncharitable (bordering on disingenuous) paraphrase of the post you're replying to. The fact that you tossed in an extraneous "hurr-durr" of your own seems to indicate that you feel particularly incapable of responding to what was actually said.

walthamstow 3y ago

A 5 year old in a Welsh primary school could tell you even more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster

Loughla 3y ago
109 kids died in that. Holy shit. And the senior officials got off with a slap on the wrist. That reads like a complete failure of the government. Why did the right people not hang for that?
- defrost 3y ago
  The people on the right at that time (UK 1966) didn't hang as they were of an effectively protected capitalist caste with no regulation to hold them to account. If you scroll down the wiki link you can see that the changes to the Mines and Quarries Act ultimately lead to things such as the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act (1974) which provided some teeth with which to bite the owners that cut corners, paid off inspectors, etc. Swings and roundabouts though, a little while later came the Miners' Strike of 1984-1985 which was easily one of the most bitter industrial disputes Britain has ever seen. a turning point in British history. Miners left their pits to fight the attempt of the Thatcher government to close the collieries, break the miners’ union and the labour movement in general, and open the way to a free market economy in which deregulated financial capitalism would be set free by the Big Bang of 1986. The full force of the police, the courts and the media were mobilised to defeat the miners, culminating with the battle of Orgreave on 18 June 1984. Thousands of miners were arrested, fined, imprisoned or sacked, some never to work again. https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/miners-strike-1984-5-oral-history https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/miners-strike-1984-5-oral-histo... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/27/40-years-miners-strike-long-shadow-uk-politics-pit-closures https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/27/40-yea... All part of the delicate balance between those many hordes wanting good wages and working conditions and those few that want all the profits.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    In retrospect, it was a battle that didn't matter. There were no profits to be had on either side - mining is best done mostly by machines, and will always be undercut by places with cheap labour and lax environmental regulations. The UK would never be able to compete. And besides, by the 80's it was already becoming clear that coal wasn't the future.
    - defrost 3y ago
      You seem unfamiliar with mining. The UK and the US aren't really big players, the single largest market for mining stocks is the Toronto TSX by a long shot - many loosely commonwealth trans national companies (Australia, Canada, South Africa, etc) with Russian, Chinese, Brazilian partners, etc. Machines play a big part - Western Australia mines almost a billion tonner of iron ore alone per annum with a tiny population, but cheap labour and lax environmental regs don't play nearly as great a part as you might think. Long term stability on 20 to 50 year time scales is pretty desirable on projects with forward capital investments of 300+ million dollars, high skill levels and good wages improve success rates, the larger mining companies have been trending more and more toward being accountable with respect to populations affected and post operation rennovation .. although that's a shift from don't care and never so .. <shrug> From a political "how society works" PoV the mining strikes and Thatcher push backs weren't about the coal either .. it was a reflection on how the new neoliberal 80s Tories intended to deal with those not aligned with their vision. There were other directions to turn labour forces of the 80s toward, but the vision as such for that time was propert development pyramids, fintech, and all that jazz. Better to be a barrow boy in The City than a gay dancing coal miner.
  - mikhailfranco 3y ago
    So offer the mine to the miners, if they each put up GBP nx100k capital. See if they really want the risk of loss/mortgage/debt in return for a job. Perhaps they know something beneficial that management doesn't? Workers can be capitalists if they know the business and want to take a risk. Get the responses, end of story. Yet it led to a huge (literal) battle? It was all political: an attack on the gov by the communist miners' union, backed by the Labour Party. It was never about economics, which were obviously terminal. Everybody knew that, on both sides.
- red_admiral 3y ago
  The government outsourced managing Aberfan and most other mines to a National Coal Board. The tribunal who investigated the disaster was very critical of said board, but it wasn't the done thing in those days to go after senior officials. Indeed, the disaster was one of the main inputs that led to the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the act under which senior officials nowadays can be (and sometimes are) prosecuted for negligence leading to deaths.
BurningFrog 3y ago
The Crown, Season 3 Episode 3, tells this story.

RealityVoid 3y ago

I find comments like this not very helpful. I mean, sure tall things fall, but you have presumably competent people working with these things, people that understand risks and do this all their life. Certainly people that know more than you and me. Somehow, they failed on this, and there's lessons to learn here, but smug "hurr-durr, don't stack things tall" is not it.

selcuka 3y ago
> you have presumably competent people working with these things, people that understand risks and do this all their life. I don't know if you are Turkish, but unfortunately this statement is not a given in Turkey, mostly because of corruption, nepotism, and a general lack of respect for knowledge and experience. I personally know some of the people who built this mine.
- gus_massa 3y ago
  I'm not sure about Turkey, but everywhere it's common to fire the guy that is worried about security and doesn't want to cut corners. Even if they are competent, some people must choose eating or safety.
buremba 3y ago
When you consider the costs of "doing it the right way", the reasoning becomes much more complex no matter how competent people are. In addition to all the corruption, we also culturally tend to be more risk-tolerant when it comes to safety IMO.
bboygravity 3y ago
Just world fallacy
ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
> "hurr-durr, don't stack things tall" This is a rude and uncharitable (bordering on disingenuous) paraphrase of the post you're replying to. The fact that you tossed in an extraneous "hurr-durr" of your own seems to indicate that you feel particularly incapable of responding to what was actually said.