171–180 of 244 posts
Is the idea of blameless postmortem that exotic in the general public? If I hear that a critical safety system failed, my first association isn't "find the individual closest to responsibility, and look into whether a criminal prosecution is feasible". - "We have the ability to prosecute under the radiation safety act and we will certainly look at such prosecutions, and we've done that in the past," [Chief Health Off…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rio Tinto are never professional, they’re trying hard not to damage their rock bottom reputation further after the fact of stuffing something up, destroying something, being negligent. If they’re giving the appearance of being good at that, don’t mistake it for professionalism. It’s simply that they know the cost to them in the future of worldwide headlines in which they lost nuclear material. Rio Tinto Enviro Destru…
Having recently learned about their pretty ambitious emissions targets I disagree with you. I think they are strongly responding to a shift in higher demand for carbon neutral materials with their big clients. I read about a sustainability labelling of Aluminium using Blockchain technology and it sounds like they're quite invested in green tech...a flip from the mining companies of yore
> using Blockchain technology
Oh dear.
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Not to mention that higher fines and prosecution could easily lead to the opposite effect in such a case, namely hiding the fact that they lost the capsule. It was extremely likely no one would have found it for years anyway.
- "lead to the opposite effect in such a case, namely hiding the fact that they lost the capsule." If you think about it, the impact's more pervasive and serious than that. Even simply saying, "hey, isn't there a potential issue with this bolt" shifts the appearance of blame on the person who's asking. When something does go wrong, the lawyer-attitude types can point to your words, and say "look: they were aware of p…
Naturally HN often has me doing laps on the ceiling.
Is the idea of blameless postmortem that exotic in the general public? If I hear that a critical safety system failed, my first association isn't "find the individual closest to responsibility, and look into whether a criminal prosecution is feasible". - "We have the ability to prosecute under the radiation safety act and we will certainly look at such prosecutions, and we've done that in the past," [Chief Health Off…
Yeah, exactly. What an engineer thinks: "Why not attach this thing to a beacon so that it can't be lost?" What everybody else thinks: "Why not persecute everybody responsible to the fullest possible extent?" Which is just our reptilian brain looking for somebody to blame but isn't actually helping anything.
Or put cameras everywhere to deter crime.
Small amount of radioactive materials go missing and it becomes international news. Things might be pretty good when it comes to nuclear materials safety after all.
The problem of disposal is political; nobody wants a nuclear waste storage bunker in their back yard. In the US, this has caused every nuclear power plant to have their own growing stockpile of nuclear waste - much more than they should have at any given time [0].
This comment was just from things I've read over time; I didn't realize the US actually has a $44B stockpile budget to build a nuclear waste disposal site, built up since the 80's.
This is what a nuclear waste storage might look like: [1]
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/18/nuclear-waste-why-theres-no-...
[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/finland-built-tomb-s...
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Slave labor under the Romans at Rio Tinto from 206 BCE onwards for two hundred years, or the 1888 Zalamea massacre, or the still linguring toxic legacy of the Panguna mine in PNG? It's such a persistent ongoing problem with mining that I'm personally more inclined to blame the collective detached nature of consumers that demand products and yet turn a blind eye to the sourcing of that which they demand.
Blaming customers for companies malfeasance must have been one of the greatest deflection tactics ever invented and it saddens me deeply when it gets parroted verbatim by the general populace.
Is the idea of blameless postmortem that exotic in the general public? If I hear that a critical safety system failed, my first association isn't "find the individual closest to responsibility, and look into whether a criminal prosecution is feasible". - "We have the ability to prosecute under the radiation safety act and we will certainly look at such prosecutions, and we've done that in the past," [Chief Health Off…
Yeah, exactly. What an engineer thinks: "Why not attach this thing to a beacon so that it can't be lost?" What everybody else thinks: "Why not persecute everybody responsible to the fullest possible extent?" Which is just our reptilian brain looking for somebody to blame but isn't actually helping anything.
Would the beacon survive for long while being irradiated?
Also, this thing was part of a reasonably large object (I assume one full of radiation warnings), but that object broke down during transport. If one attached a beacon, that similarly could end up detached from the capsule.
Is the idea of blameless postmortem that exotic in the general public? If I hear that a critical safety system failed, my first association isn't "find the individual closest to responsibility, and look into whether a criminal prosecution is feasible". - "We have the ability to prosecute under the radiation safety act and we will certainly look at such prosecutions, and we've done that in the past," [Chief Health Off…
I suspect the extend and target of postmortem blame varies considerably from culture to culture. An anecdote from the railroad traffic between Germany and Denmark: "[In 2019, a DB Cargo freight train in Denmark caused an accident with a passenger train on its way to Copenhagen after a truck trailer flew off the freight train due to high winds. The German side was keen to find out who was responsible at the lowest lev…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, exactly. What an engineer thinks: "Why not attach this thing to a beacon so that it can't be lost?" What everybody else thinks: "Why not persecute everybody responsible to the fullest possible extent?" Which is just our reptilian brain looking for somebody to blame but isn't actually helping anything.
> What an engineer thinks: "Why not attach this thing to a beacon so that it can't be lost?" Would the beacon survive for long while being irradiated? Also, this thing was part of a reasonably large object (I assume one full of radiation warnings), but that object broke down during transport. If one attached a beacon, that similarly could end up detached from the capsule.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, exactly. What an engineer thinks: "Why not attach this thing to a beacon so that it can't be lost?" What everybody else thinks: "Why not persecute everybody responsible to the fullest possible extent?" Which is just our reptilian brain looking for somebody to blame but isn't actually helping anything.
> What an engineer thinks: "Why not attach this thing to a beacon so that it can't be lost?" Would the beacon survive for long while being irradiated? Also, this thing was part of a reasonably large object (I assume one full of radiation warnings), but that object broke down during transport. If one attached a beacon, that similarly could end up detached from the capsule.