Earlier quoted context omitted.
One start would be to disable smartphones from operating when linked to a car system, massively increase enforcement of smartphone use while driving, and increase penalties. None of that would be popular, but it would be effective.
Let police agencies access cell phone location history and fine anyone moving above the speed limit on a road. Force cell phones to stop working when velocity is above 5 mph.
How factories were made safe
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Re: How factories were made safe
#92> The lack of systems thinking We managed to make factories safe but kill 1.3 M people/year in traffic instead [1] I wonder: will we ever manage to apply systems thinking in traffic as well? [1] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffi...
One start would be to disable smartphones from operating when linked to a car system, massively increase enforcement of smartphone use while driving, and increase penalties. None of that would be popular, but it would be effective.
Re: How factories were made safe
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let police agencies access cell phone location history and fine anyone moving above the speed limit on a road. Force cell phones to stop working when velocity is above 5 mph.
Not all cell phones being used in cars are used by drivers. I wouldn’t want my cell phone disabled in an Uber, or to get a ticket because my uber driver was speeding.
So never mind your phone, how would their business even operate if no phones were allowed?
Re: How factories were made safe
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm endlessly amused that the Richard Nixon years gave us OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Act, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and NIOSH - National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health), the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act (proposed by the Nixon Administration, passed by Ford), the 1969 Nationa…
It’s kind of crazy how fast American politics went off the rails. Really seems like it really kicks off with Reagan but I’m not versed enough to be sure if he’s the cause or just one of the symptoms (most likely both really in the end) but it’s always wild to see just how many of the ‘big government run amok’ agencies came out of the Nixon admin.
This was essentially due to Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights movement. This observation became strategy, to use the movement as a wedge issue to convince conservative southern democrats to switch allegiance. Before this, the distribution of conservative to progressive, while still slanted, was more even than afterwards. The trend continued through Nixon, Reagan, Newt Gingrich, GWB, and now Trump.
It's largely been the same cohort of voters driving this trend, and their views have been becoming more radical vs centrist. Among democrats you can see some attempts to cater to these voters as well like with Bill Clinton. Another big part of it is the rise of the evangelical right to top level influence in the republican party as well.
There's certainly a whole heck of a lot more to the story than this, but when you go digging through the dispassionate history and summaries, this realignment is clear. In some sense the republican leadership is now being hoisted by their own petard, as the more classical or centrist ones show in relation to how they respond to Trump's most extreme actions.
We're probably headed for another realignment, but I think anyone claiming to know what will trigger it or how it will shake it is far too confident of their own clairvoyance.
Re: How factories were made safe
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
One start would be to disable smartphones from operating when linked to a car system, massively increase enforcement of smartphone use while driving, and increase penalties. None of that would be popular, but it would be effective.
That would create temporary disruption, but how would it have any long term benefit, once cars started having navigation as an option again?
Re: How factories were made safe
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
The key for workman's comp was no-fault--you pay for your own accidents. That had to be enshrined in law to work. Several US states HAD No-Fault insurance laws--ie your own insurance company pays for your own accidents. The insurance companies lobbied like crazy to get those removed. They're all gone now. If you got those No-Fault insurance laws back, the required systems thinking would ensue.
Pennsylvania at least has no-fault auto insurance.
Re: How factories were made safe
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
We went from thousands of transistors in chip in 1970 to billions of transistors in chip in 2020.
Exactly. Transistors were invented in 1947, Engelbart presented on downscaling ICs to an audience including Moore in 1960, and he observed his law in 1965. It's mostly held, transistors have incrementally increased as predicted over 50 years ago. This is consistent with Stephenson's observation that there's been no meaningful innovation since the late '60s.
Re: How factories were made safe
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn't alive in the late 60s but most things I spend all day doing were literally not possible for consumers until the 90s-aughts
Listening to music? Looking at television screens? Pushing typewriter keys? Playing videogames? Programming computers? Video calls? While more expensive when adjusted for inflation, all were commercially available in the '60s. You could make video calls in Grand Central in 1964, even if you could only call DC or Chicago and it cost $5 a minute. The future was already here, as Gibson observed. The internet seems like…
I smoked ribs for the first time in my life. Despite having 0 bbq experience and being a relatively new owner of a charcoal grill, I for free and on a whim tapped into the nearly infinite font of human knowledge available at my fingertips to learn about the 3-2-1 method of competition barbecue and made amazing hickory smoked ribs. Without the internet I wouldn't have even bothered, and acquiring that knowledge would have required a trip to a book store or a personal contact with a BBQ expert.
I gave a tour of my newly renovated home to my mother who lives in another state and is in quarantine, having recently tested positive for covid.
I navigated somewhere I've never been easily using a handheld GPS which can navigate any modality (ie, bus directions and train directions for us city folk)
I drove 70 minutes to another state for a small collectors sale in my niche hobby and found something to add to my collection. I wouldn't have known about the sale, or hell even adopted this hobby in the first place, if I didn't have an internet group with dozens of strangers in my city all interested in the same topic.
I made two sales of items in said niche hobby to other hobbyists in my city. Absolute strangers I've never met before. I listed the item in the weekly "deal or no deal" style thread, after striking a deal I sent my address, and when they said they were on the way I left the item on the doorstep for them.
I watched a significant amount of TV without a single commercial break and on my schedule. Not pay per view either.
I left a message for my downstairs neighbor that the contractors are scheduled to show up Monday to replace their basement windows. My neighbors were in another state and got the message anyways.
I continue to work a job with my boss who lives in a other state (and has been for years).
These are all examples of "massive progress and insane improvements to efficiency" In particular with respect to information, hence why this is called the information revolution.
Re: How factories were made safe
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I understand, we do have the physical capability of housing that many people, but a significant number of the homeless are drug addicted, have mental illness, or both, and attempts to provide housing in mass like that leads to many of the houses becoming filthy and/or damaged. And who would want to give up a house for that? Homelessness can't just be solved with a housing band-aid, but needs to be addressed…
Having safe, stable shelter would seem to be a prerequisite to helping people deal with drug addiction and mental illness. Baxter, A. J., Tweed, E. J., Katikireddi, S. V., & Thomson, H. (2019). Effects of Housing First approaches on health and well-being of adults who are homeless or at risk of homelessness: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. J Epidemiol Community Health, 73(5), 379-…
For a homeless person who is not addicted, sharing the shelter with the addicted ones means constant worry that even the little stuff they own gets stolen the moment they stop paying attention, and also lack of sleep because of the constant screaming and fighting during the night.
Re: How factories were made safe
#100The audacity of that tangent at the end. "Natural and inevitable"? People fought and died for your 40 hour work week. You know May Day? The Labor Day for the rest of the world? Commemorates the Haymarket Massacre, which was fighting for the 8 hour work day.
Yeah, I didn't fully understand the point of that tangent, and it sounds like to me this "debate" between the Progressive and Capitalist, was "won" by the Progressive. But I guess I'm just a radical? > P. ....But the safety movement was not inevitable—it was the result of progressive reformers. Capitalism would never have accomplished this on its own. > C. Well… I have to admit, reformers like Eastman and Hard seem i…