3 ms·

The next time people ask "why so much paperwork, why so many regulations, why is it so complicated": this is why. Don't blame the regulators (legal (state) and

by aredox 3y ago

The next time people ask "why so much paperwork, why so many regulations, why is it so complicated": this is why. Don't blame the regulators (legal (state) and paralegal (ethics committees)), blame those who abused their power.

kbolino 3y ago
Observing the banality of evil in action, one could just as well surmise that the function of paperwork is to normalize grossly unethical practices and disconnect individuals from their moral agency.
sidewndr46 3y ago
Given that the perpetrator here was in fact the government, your argument carries no weight. Legal paperwork cannot prevent the government from choosing evil. In fact, it only serves to sanction it in most cases.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  > Legal paperwork cannot prevent the government from choosing evil This is deeply mistaken attitude - paperwork allows your to prosecute the person in the government that signed off on this decision. Without paperwork, you wouldn’t be able to pin the decision on anyone And it is entirely normal to have the next government prosecute corrupt officials from the previous one
  - cryptonector 3y ago
    > And it is entirely normal to have the next government prosecute corrupt officials from the previous one Has this happened recently in the UK? Like, in the past 50 years, or in the past 100 years?
eviks 3y ago
All these regulations and paperwork didn't help prevent the crisis described in the article, so can we blame useless complications now?
- sp332 3y ago
  The ones in the article ended in the 80's.
- aredox 3y ago
  Most of them didn't exist at the time.
ajkjk 3y ago
You can still blame the solutions for their problems while acknowledging that they exist to solve another problem...
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  “We are inconvenienced because some humans are otherwise monsters.”
  - salawat 3y ago
    Otherwise stated as >This is why we can't have nice things.
    - dcrow0 3y ago
      shut up
- infamouscow 3y ago
  This site heavily skews towards progressive ideology and has a lot of trouble with the idea of government being anything less than the solution everything. (Of course this only holds true when their favorite person is running it. As soon as the other guy runs it, the world is moments from ending.) You can see it first-hand by scrolling through my comment history. Rarely does anyone attempt to engage directly with any of the dissenting points, despite most of them being as old as War and Peace. The only tool available to them is perverting the voting system with downvote brigades and flagging. When alternative approaches are suggested, they're met with a mindless regurgitation of emotionally charged rhetoric rather than careful thought and reason. Their narcissism allows them dismiss anyone that even slightly disagrees with their approach. Those broadcasting alternative points of view are demonized and viciously attacked with the same oppressive tactics employed by the Sturmabteilung. The only saving grace here is ignoring reality is very costly. Eventually the payments are going to come due and the Schadenfreude is going to be very satisfying.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  History shows we need regulation of medical trials. We can and should continually improve the system of regulation we have in place. We must not throw out the system completely, as that will likely result in a regression to previous behaviors and outcomes (which we've already determined were wrong).
ekidd 3y ago
> The next time people ask "why so much paperwork, why so many regulations, why is it so complicated": this is why. Yes, as the saying goes, regulations and safety rules are often written in blood. But that doesn't mean that all regulations are automatically good and proportionate. For example, many institutional review boards would have zero problem with researchers deliberately submitting security holes to the Linux kernel. Sure, you're experimenting on kernel maintainers without their consent, and sure, you might make hundreds of millions of people vulnerable. But it's not technically "human research", so the IRB may sign off. https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-linux-foundations-demands-to-the-university-of-minnesota-for-its-bad-linux-patches/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-linux-foundations-demands-... Meanwhile, if you're a psychiatrist working in a hospital, and if you want to (say) compare the results of your standard screening questionare against the results of your standard patient intake interview, you might think this is easy. Patients will usually do both anyways, so how hard can it be to design an ethical process to compare the two? Well, it's harder than you might expect: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/ I agree that we need to have rules and regulations about many things. But we should still discuss whether specific regulations accomplish the intended goal, and how big a cost those regulations impose on society. It is perfectly possible for a large organization to design a software development process that makes it impossible to ever ship software. And similar pathologies often appear in any large organization, public or private. Designing good policies is hard but worth it.
cryptonector 3y ago
Tuskegee. > Documents just released show the government in 1973 knew about the trials at Treloars and covered some costs. There's no perfect system. When the regulator, or the regulator's boss, is in on it, or when the industry has captured the regulator (which invariably happens), all that paperwork, all those regulations, all that complication -- they do nothing to protect the victims.
- malfist 3y ago
  A solution doesn't have to be perfect to be a solution. It just has to be better than the alternative.
  - cryptonector 3y ago
    Regulations and regulators are awesome right up until they are captured, and then they can be worse than no solution, especially when the "solution" comes with immunity from civil suits.
    - marcinzm 3y ago
      And yet despite a century of ever increasing regulations mining and factory injury and death rates have somehow not gone back up to their 1900 levels as you seem to claim they should have.
      - cryptonector 3y ago
        > as you seem to claim they should have. Please don't do that. I said nothing of the sort. Plus what you did, besides being the "have you stopped beating your wife yet" sort of disgusting attack, is also whataboutism. The thing about workplace safety is that a) employers don't relish their employees getting hurt or dying on the job, b) employers don't benefit when their employees get hurt or die on the job, so even if there were no regulations employers would still not go back to 120 years ago states of workplace safety, c) regulations here can help force employers to make better calculations regarding costs and benefits of improving workplace safety as it's on the improvement side that the costs mostly lie. So you see, there is not much benefit to the industry in capturing the regulator for the purpose of undoing workplace safety regulations.
alex_lav 3y ago
Why must I choose which offensive and inadequate system to be outraged at?
vlod 3y ago
You know paperwork gets "lost" right? I know someone which was allergic to something and got prescribed that something by their general doctor (which had those records). That person died and the all medical records (from that doctor) somehow went missing. fyi: This was during the 1980's in the UK.

by aredox 3y ago

kbolino 3y ago

Observing the banality of evil in action, one could just as well surmise that the function of paperwork is to normalize grossly unethical practices and disconnect individuals from their moral agency.

sidewndr46 3y ago

Given that the perpetrator here was in fact the government, your argument carries no weight. Legal paperwork cannot prevent the government from choosing evil. In fact, it only serves to sanction it in most cases.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> Legal paperwork cannot prevent the government from choosing evil This is deeply mistaken attitude - paperwork allows your to prosecute the person in the government that signed off on this decision. Without paperwork, you wouldn’t be able to pin the decision on anyone And it is entirely normal to have the next government prosecute corrupt officials from the previous one
- cryptonector 3y ago
  > And it is entirely normal to have the next government prosecute corrupt officials from the previous one Has this happened recently in the UK? Like, in the past 50 years, or in the past 100 years?

eviks 3y ago

All these regulations and paperwork didn't help prevent the crisis described in the article, so can we blame useless complications now?

sp332 3y ago
The ones in the article ended in the 80's.
aredox 3y ago
Most of them didn't exist at the time.

ajkjk 3y ago

You can still blame the solutions for their problems while acknowledging that they exist to solve another problem...

toomuchtodo 3y ago
“We are inconvenienced because some humans are otherwise monsters.”
- salawat 3y ago
  Otherwise stated as >This is why we can't have nice things.
  - dcrow0 3y ago
    shut up
infamouscow 3y ago
This site heavily skews towards progressive ideology and has a lot of trouble with the idea of government being anything less than the solution everything. (Of course this only holds true when their favorite person is running it. As soon as the other guy runs it, the world is moments from ending.) You can see it first-hand by scrolling through my comment history. Rarely does anyone attempt to engage directly with any of the dissenting points, despite most of them being as old as War and Peace. The only tool available to them is perverting the voting system with downvote brigades and flagging. When alternative approaches are suggested, they're met with a mindless regurgitation of emotionally charged rhetoric rather than careful thought and reason. Their narcissism allows them dismiss anyone that even slightly disagrees with their approach. Those broadcasting alternative points of view are demonized and viciously attacked with the same oppressive tactics employed by the Sturmabteilung. The only saving grace here is ignoring reality is very costly. Eventually the payments are going to come due and the Schadenfreude is going to be very satisfying.
alistairSH 3y ago
History shows we need regulation of medical trials. We can and should continually improve the system of regulation we have in place. We must not throw out the system completely, as that will likely result in a regression to previous behaviors and outcomes (which we've already determined were wrong).

ekidd 3y ago

> The next time people ask "why so much paperwork, why so many regulations, why is it so complicated": this is why. Yes, as the saying goes, regulations and safety rules are often written in blood. But that doesn't mean that all regulations are automatically good and proportionate. For example, many institutional review boards would have zero problem with researchers deliberately submitting security holes to the Linux kernel. Sure, you're experimenting on kernel maintainers without their consent, and sure, you might make hundreds of millions of people vulnerable. But it's not technically "human research", so the IRB may sign off. https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-linux-foundations-demands-to-the-university-of-minnesota-for-its-bad-linux-patches/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-linux-foundations-demands-... Meanwhile, if you're a psychiatrist working in a hospital, and if you want to (say) compare the results of your standard screening questionare against the results of your standard patient intake interview, you might think this is easy. Patients will usually do both anyways, so how hard can it be to design an ethical process to compare the two? Well, it's harder than you might expect: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/ I agree that we need to have rules and regulations about many things. But we should still discuss whether specific regulations accomplish the intended goal, and how big a cost those regulations impose on society. It is perfectly possible for a large organization to design a software development process that makes it impossible to ever ship software. And similar pathologies often appear in any large organization, public or private. Designing good policies is hard but worth it.

cryptonector 3y ago

Tuskegee. > Documents just released show the government in 1973 knew about the trials at Treloars and covered some costs. There's no perfect system. When the regulator, or the regulator's boss, is in on it, or when the industry has captured the regulator (which invariably happens), all that paperwork, all those regulations, all that complication -- they do nothing to protect the victims.

malfist 3y ago
A solution doesn't have to be perfect to be a solution. It just has to be better than the alternative.
- cryptonector 3y ago
  Regulations and regulators are awesome right up until they are captured, and then they can be worse than no solution, especially when the "solution" comes with immunity from civil suits.
  - marcinzm 3y ago
    And yet despite a century of ever increasing regulations mining and factory injury and death rates have somehow not gone back up to their 1900 levels as you seem to claim they should have.
    - cryptonector 3y ago
      > as you seem to claim they should have. Please don't do that. I said nothing of the sort. Plus what you did, besides being the "have you stopped beating your wife yet" sort of disgusting attack, is also whataboutism. The thing about workplace safety is that a) employers don't relish their employees getting hurt or dying on the job, b) employers don't benefit when their employees get hurt or die on the job, so even if there were no regulations employers would still not go back to 120 years ago states of workplace safety, c) regulations here can help force employers to make better calculations regarding costs and benefits of improving workplace safety as it's on the improvement side that the costs mostly lie. So you see, there is not much benefit to the industry in capturing the regulator for the purpose of undoing workplace safety regulations.

alex_lav 3y ago

Why must I choose which offensive and inadequate system to be outraged at?

vlod 3y ago

You know paperwork gets "lost" right? I know someone which was allergic to something and got prescribed that something by their general doctor (which had those records). That person died and the all medical records (from that doctor) somehow went missing. fyi: This was during the 1980's in the UK.