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The dictatorship of the articulate

florentcrivello.com

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Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#291

Post by njarboe »

hourago wrote: post #127
secretsatan wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was going to say this, human life was cheaper. It's quite worrying to see now a trend trying to praise this attitude as fearless workers, where as the ones we have now are all wimps, views usually espoused by people who have never, and will never work a job that could be dangerous

> by people who have never, and will never work a job that could be dangerous It may be even worse. Quite often people that suffers from dangerous jobs will also support the situation as they fear the uncertainty of what change may mean. That a worker in a dangerous environment is willing to accept it to get food on the table does not mean that it is the right work environment. But, of course, the main proposers of u…

Some people (mostly men) actually enjoy dangerous situations. Especially if there is a purpose for the danger. Look at all the people doing extreme sports. The military, police, and fire fighters are the main jobs left for people like that. There used to be a lot more.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#292

Post by fluoridation »

thrown_22 wrote: post #272
Cipater wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm fine with people dying during construction _if_ we foresee the deaths. Because that's other people dying. >What I'm not fine with is killing people with lead/arsenic/asbestos/plastics because we didn't put new tech through it's paces before we deployed it en-mass. Because this affects you.

>Because that's other people dying. My first job out of high school was on an old school oil rig: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Jn2BU4eyVHQ What worried me about it wasn't the fact I could lose a hand, but that more than half the chemicals we were getting smeared in daily weren't properly tested for their long term effects on humans.

The distinction you're trying to draw seems unclear to me. Why is bodily harm from chemicals worse than bodily harm from mechanical forces?

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#293

Post by njarboe »

krferriter wrote: post #289
midoridensha wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other highly-developed countries manage to construct things with at least as much safety as the US, at a far lower cost.

And with more unions and stronger unions than the US! Some people want to say unionization of some sectors is what makes US construction costs so high, but it really isn't because we can compare to other countries and see that it is possible to do things more cheaply while still maintaining a good level of worker benefits, and perhaps even more worker benefits.

Public construction is more expensive. I think private US construction cost are not nearly as out of alignment with other countries (once past the permitting phase of course).

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#294

Post by prox »

kortilla wrote: post #147
rwl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also a cost in human life. I saw a photo exhibition [1] about the construction of the Bay Bridge once, containing many beautiful shots from the point of view of the workers. The photos were taken by Peter Stackpole, a 20 year old kid who basically just talked his way onto the boats that took the workers out to the site. He took photos of the towers as they were being riveted together, of the cables being wo…

False dichotomy. Look at the delays and cost balloons of the HSR project. They have nothing to do with safety of workers. You can adopt modern safety standards and still wipeout a ton of roadblocks to actually get started much sooner by just generally using eminent domain more freely and not empowering people to so easily stop projects with lawsuits.

I think NASA vs SpaceX is a good example. The Artemis costs about 4 billion dollars each flight

The Artemis(/SLS) gets build in so many different states so everyone gets a bit of the pie, it seems mostly build by politicians, not by engineers or a general director.

Starship, which is similarly powerful and has more tonnage to carry only costs $240 million, which numbers will drop steeply if we do a lot of launches.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#296

Post by jobs_throwaway »

savanaly wrote: post #281
rwl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also a cost in human life. I saw a photo exhibition [1] about the construction of the Bay Bridge once, containing many beautiful shots from the point of view of the workers. The photos were taken by Peter Stackpole, a 20 year old kid who basically just talked his way onto the boats that took the workers out to the site. He took photos of the towers as they were being riveted together, of the cables being wo…

I don't think construction workers today would put up with someone in their ranks (construction crew on some big building) routinely dying and not strike for better conditions.

then how do you explain how our European counterparts are able to build just as safely at literally a fraction of the cost?

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#297

Post by prox »

api wrote: post #242
rwl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also a cost in human life. I saw a photo exhibition [1] about the construction of the Bay Bridge once, containing many beautiful shots from the point of view of the workers. The photos were taken by Peter Stackpole, a 20 year old kid who basically just talked his way onto the boats that took the workers out to the site. He took photos of the towers as they were being riveted together, of the cables being wo…

That's total misattribution of cause and effect. We could build that bridge today just as fast with no loss of life. We have tie offs, sensors, harnesses, automation, power tools, helicopters, better cranes, etc. Look at the California high speed rail debacle. The reason for its lack of progress has zero to do with worker safety. They've barely even tried to do anything. It hasn't even gotten that far. Our unwillingn…

This. The article is a good start for a debate, but is rather superficial (it kind of has to be since it’s so general in tone)

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#298

Post by lesuorac »

refurb wrote: post #258
coldtea wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously more than zero, else we wouldn't attempt to build any bridge (or do anything else, like drive cars or fly planes) lest someone dies in the process...

That doesn't follow. What's acceptable (i.e. It's ok if 1 person dies on this project) is different than what's the potential risk (i.e. There is a risk that 1 person might die on this project).

Why not?

If you're working on a project and 5 people have died so far and you've still got a lot more to do I think it's pretty reasonable to expect that more people will die. So, if you're going to continue the project you're considering it acceptable that somebody else will die as well.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#299

Post by carapace »

The author is calling for deregulation just to build more wealth extraction machines for the already-wealthy.

In re: the first part about building, check out the history of the Embarcadero freeway, the one that isn't there anymore. There are good reasons why things have slowed down, why we consider longer and deeper before we build.

In re: "Too many seats at the table" you'll notice that it's the other fellow's seat that the author wants to take away, not their own. "There is always a loser to any change" indeed. That's why we want multi-stakeholder decision making: to make global optimizations.

People don't hate Uber because they made it easier for [some] people to get around. People hate Uber because they destroyed traffic etiquette and because they rip off their employees to enrich their investors: https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-market-fairy-will-not-solve-the...

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#300

Post by Tsiklon »

thrown_22 wrote: post #276
Tsiklon wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a very callous and detached way to consider human life. It’s exactly the sort of thinking that led to the execution of the Ford Pinto. Wherein the bookkeepers determined that the number of deaths and cost of wrongful death settlements would be less than the cost of recalls to fix the fatal design error in the car.

The most American thing in the world is to worry about the 4 deaths per year caused by the faults in that car while ignoring the other 40,000 deaths a year caused by cars in general.

I’m not American, this is whataboutery and absurd to argue, everyone wants safer roads.

The example of the Pinto is famous worldwide; famous for the disgusting disregard Ford had for it’s own customers. That it would rather send its own customers to a painful death than have the decency to pay to fix the fault it was aware of, is abhorrent.

This behaviour resulted in a known unsafe product remaining on sale long after the fault was discovered - the people who died were not qualified to understand the additional risk the car had to it’s occupants.

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