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Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

reuters.com

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Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#361

Post by dang »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #360
dang wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not going to do that, for a bunch of reasons. One is that it's a creative constraint which (after 15 years I think we can say) is always possible to work within. Another is that if we made it longer, people would soon experience the new length as a constraint in its own right.

One trick is that HN also recommends we use the original headline from the piece posted. Whenever I have to edit it for length, I sometimes worry I'm going to be warned for editorializing a headline.

It's pretty obvious when someone has simply been editing to fit the length limit. That's legit.

Editorializing has to do with changing the meaning of a title—for example to put a spin or interpretation on it that the submitter wants to emphasize. On HN, submitters don't get to use the title field as a sort of mini comment box.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#362

Post by Cookingboy »

romwell wrote: post #359
Cookingboy wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly you sound like one of those armchair analysts from California who have no idea what weather even is. The warnings for tornado touchdowns are minutes at best. Businesses don't shut down whenever there is a bad storm with the possibility of tornado. It happens way too frequently for that to be practical.

What's up with justifying corporate manslaughter? Also yay for assuming. The point here was that employees who knew better didn't have an option to say, shit, it's not looking good, it's too risky to come to work / stay at work. And at least one person died because of that[2]. For the record, my partner used to live in Kansas, I've spent a fair amount of time there (years, months at a time). K-State campus, where she…

>As for warning time, Amazon got between 11 and 21 minutes of lead time[1]. Enough time to walk a mile, or drive 15.

Tornado warnings don't have pinpoint accuracy. There is just high of a chance for tornado to touch down on your car on the road. Staying in an existing build's shelter absolutely is the right thing to do. No business/organizations send their employees out of the door when there is a tornado warning. THAT, would be corporate manslaughter.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#363

Post by romwell »

Cookingboy wrote: post #362
romwell wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's up with justifying corporate manslaughter? Also yay for assuming. The point here was that employees who knew better didn't have an option to say, shit, it's not looking good, it's too risky to come to work / stay at work. And at least one person died because of that[2]. For the record, my partner used to live in Kansas, I've spent a fair amount of time there (years, months at a time). K-State campus, where she…

>As for warning time, Amazon got between 11 and 21 minutes of lead time[1]. Enough time to walk a mile, or drive 15. Tornado warnings don't have pinpoint accuracy. There is just high of a chance for tornado to touch down on your car on the road. Staying in an existing build's shelter absolutely is the right thing to do. No business/organizations send their employees out of the door when there is a tornado warning. TH…

>Staying in an existing build's shelter absolutely is the right thing to do.

It was not the "right thing to do" for someone who wanted to leave, couldn't because his job was on the line, and died as a result. There's no way to spin it.

>No business/organizations send their employees out of the door when there is a tornado warning. THAT, would be corporate manslaughter.

You're almost there! See, if forcefully kicking everyone out is manslaughter, then forcefully keeping people inside (threat of termination is a force for working people, you know) in a building that was absolutely not built to withstand such tornadoes (built for Amazon), and then directing people to go to "safe" places within the building that became their graves is . . .

Business is usual, you appear to think?

Just stop. Once Amazon puts the ball-and-chain of "do exactly as we say, or be fired" on people, they take responsibility for their livelihoods in case of an emergency.

The genuine thing to do there would be to tell everyone that they are off for the day the moment they got the tornado notice, that there's a tornado, and that Amazon asks everyone to follow safety procedures.

The fact that Amazon did not relieve their workers is what makes them murderers. These people were still on the clock. They died as employees, doing what their supervisors told them to do. By not telling their workers that they are free for the day, Amazon took responsibility for their lives.

The deaths of these people are on Amazon.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#364

Post by jfrunyon »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #355
jfrunyon wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct, Raleigh isn't in tornado alley. Raleigh also gets a fraction (somewhere around 1/3rd) of the tornadoes that St Louis does. Whereas St Louis gets as many tornadoes as most of whatever YOU consider "tornado alley".

Your use of "YOU" is weird when I haven't even really decided what I think should be called tornado alley. I just wanted to point out that whatever method you're using is not "single definition: where tornadoes happen"; it's something more subjective. Also to be clear I was using "Raleigh" as shorthand for "that orange cell right next to Raleigh", which is the same 11-15 color as St. Louis.

I never said it wasn't subjective, so I'm not sure why you're commenting here. I said IF one insisted on a single definition. i.e. like the person I was replying to did.

"That orange cell right next to Raleigh" is an outlier, unlike say... St Louis.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#365

Post by SECProto »

dylan604 wrote: post #353
SECProto wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was being pedantic. But also truthful, in that I do not have a tv and the only radio is in my car.

That's what I thought. So, the onus is on you to stay informed. Society has put in place many many ways to notify of severe weather. You have elected to use none. Don't be the next statistic.

The onus is indeed on me. When I've lived in places with rare susceptibility to tornados, they use the emergency alert system. When I lived somewhere with susceptibility to north korea firing missiles overhead, they have an air raid siren. When I lived somewhere the only weather danger is hurricanes, I just check the weather forecast.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#366

Post by asteroidbelt »

heavyset_go wrote: post #303
Hokusai wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is there best argument to fight now for good conditions, the more robots in the future the less leverage to negotiate. On a second note, if robots replace humans. Who is going to buy products? Because humans without jobs do not have money. Why have warehouses if nobody can but anything? That hypothetical future were robots replace workers is way more complicated that many people thinks.

> On a second note, if robots replace humans. Who is going to buy products? Because humans without jobs do not have money. Why have warehouses if nobody can but anything? That hypothetical future were robots replace workers is way more complicated that many people thinks. Production will shift towards serving those with wealth versus those that need to work to survive. It's already happening to the housing market.

> Production will shift towards serving those with wealth

That's right. Serving those who created wealth.

It is already happening everywhere. Grocery store cashiers are serving while collar workers.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#367

Post by Dylan16807 »

jfrunyon wrote: post #364
Dylan16807 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your use of "YOU" is weird when I haven't even really decided what I think should be called tornado alley. I just wanted to point out that whatever method you're using is not "single definition: where tornadoes happen"; it's something more subjective. Also to be clear I was using "Raleigh" as shorthand for "that orange cell right next to Raleigh", which is the same 11-15 color as St. Louis.

I never said it wasn't subjective, so I'm not sure why you're commenting here. I said IF one insisted on a single definition. i.e. like the person I was replying to did. "That orange cell right next to Raleigh" is an outlier, unlike say... St Louis.

> I said IF one insisted on a single definition. i.e. like the person I was replying to did.

And I'm saying that you're wrong on that. IF there is a single definition, it's not the one you proposed.

Also it's worth noting that even if a definition of a term is subjective, people can still be right or wrong; subjectivity usually has limits.

> "That orange cell right next to Raleigh" is an outlier, unlike say... St Louis.

I thought you might say that. But if you want to look at the local area, then do that on both cities! Multiple cells in the St Louis area only have 1-4. The average is 5-10. And there are also multiple 5-10 cells right next to Raleigh. St Louis gets more tornadoes, but it's not by a very big factor.

And the Springfield MO area is on par with the Raleigh area. So, as a thought experiment, if that should matter... well, then we'd want to define tornado alley to exclude Springfield. The line from Springfield MO to Chicago has significantly fewer tornadoes than the areas on either side, so a very natural outcome would be splitting the tornado risk into two swaths, east and west. And huh, the West one more or less matches that supposed map of tornado alley. And it doesn't include St Louis.

I'm not saying that definition is necessarily right, but it's reasonable.

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