Crowdsourcing, the Gulf Oil Spill and the Arrogance of BP • Hacker News Board

Re: Crowdsourcing, the Gulf Oil Spill and the Arrogance of BP

#11

Post by Groxx » Fri, Jun 25, 2010, 6:57 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #9

Groxx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So environmental damage to many thousands of square miles (how many cubic?) has no/low implied cost, only human damages? That's not exactly a good message to be sending to businesses.

That's not what I said. Rather, much is made about how BP is not doing enough, yet what it has already done dwarfs what UC did. And Americans didn't bat an eyelid.

Aaaaaahhh, my mistake. I read it wrong, I see it now. Though that doesn't counter the amount of attention the spill has had, nor the damages (it's direcly affected more than 20k people, certainly, though yes it's not the same). Americans have a decent isolationist bent to them, I think that's part of the reason. It happens when you're the biggest fish in the pond - you get to thinking you're untouchable, so others matter less.

Re: Crowdsourcing, the Gulf Oil Spill and the Arrogance of BP

#12

Post by rosskimbarovsky » Fri, Jun 25, 2010, 7:15 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #3

A "solution" isn't an idea. Ideas are 10 a penny. How many of those solutions were actual plans that could be put into effect, bills of materials, Gantt charts, cost breakdowns? Personally I would rather BP be getting on with the job than reading unsolicited email from the peanut gallery. Oh, and to put that $2.35Bn into perspective, Union Carbide paid out $450M for, umm, killing 20,000 people at Bhopal. BP has made…

That's certainly a fair point - proposed solutions aren't guaranteed to work. But given InnoCentive's long history of helping the government and some of the world's smartest companies solve really complex problems, surely it was worth at least an exploration. I'm certain the InnoCentive community would have helped - and still will - whittle the ideas down to those that make the most sense.

The simple truth is that BP isn't able to solve the problem. I hope they will. But for the moment, rejecting potential solutions seems short sighted.

Re: Crowdsourcing, the Gulf Oil Spill and the Arrogance of BP

#13

Post by mcknz » Fri, Jun 25, 2010, 7:41 PM UTC

We need ideas to replace oil or at least find safer ways to extract it -- this X-Prize model does not work in a crisis, especially when there are already credible strategies. There is not time to start from scratch, and BP sure as hell isn't the entity to evaluate the feasibility. They have enough to do. BP's call for ideas is pure PR.

Re: Crowdsourcing, the Gulf Oil Spill and the Arrogance of BP

#14

Post by temphn » Sat, Jun 26, 2010, 9:07 AM UTC

gaius wrote: post #3

A "solution" isn't an idea. Ideas are 10 a penny. How many of those solutions were actual plans that could be put into effect, bills of materials, Gantt charts, cost breakdowns? Personally I would rather BP be getting on with the job than reading unsolicited email from the peanut gallery. Oh, and to put that $2.35Bn into perspective, Union Carbide paid out $450M for, umm, killing 20,000 people at Bhopal. BP has made…

Little known thing that shocked me when I read it: credible reports (including that of the external investigator) concluded that Bhopal was sabotage, not negligence. A disgruntled employee backed up a tanker and dumped water into a chamber without realizing the consequences. This individual obviously couldn't pay damages an it is more convenient to have the evil corp bad guy.

It is interesting that one never even HEARS the other side of this story.