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> Why not compare... On the engineering side - you learn far more from analyzing failures than from analyzing successes. On the social side - there's nothing
by bell-cot 2y ago
> Why not compare...
On the engineering side - you learn far more from analyzing failures than from analyzing successes.
On the social side - there's nothing mysterious about how the US bureaucracy failed here. Briefly contrasting that with Utopialand (where the society & government are different, and bridges never fall) can work as journalism. Or as a rebuttal to "failures will always happen" doomsayers. But the utility is pretty limited. The US isn't a tech company, where you might fire up the troops by talking about how your competition is delivering obviously-better results on metric X.
- lucianbr 2y ago> On the engineering side - you learn far more from analyzing failures than from analyzing successes. This is just sophistry. You won't learn how this collapse could have been prevented, or how to prevent others like it, by studying countries where infrastructure is worse. You're already doing better than those places, and still it's not enough. Also, I'm pretty sure engineering schools study both failures and successes. It is incredible to me that someone would honestly believe studying bridges that have not fallen is useless.
- bell-cot 2y agoDoes the NTSB agree with you, and write lengthy investigative reports about most of the bridges which are successes? Another engineering quip: "Any idiot can build a bridge that stands. But it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands."