Accountability Sinks • Hacker News Board

Re: Accountability Sinks

#371

Post by asdf6969 » Sun, May 04, 2025, 4:49 PM UTC

blueflow wrote: post #26

Etheryte wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are numerous conflicts worldwide where one side is trying to systematically destroy the other population, civilians and all. Whether they are exactly the same or how you define that is pretty secondary to that fact.

Whatever. Since my last Wikipedia spree on that topic i feel such comparisons are highly inappropriate.

Unfortunately this is one of those times where Wikipedia is not useful. Any page related to an ongoing conflict is under constant attack from bad actors on all sides. Go read some books or visit in person if you want to know the truth.

Israel is actively committing atrocities similar to the holocaust and the comparison is fitting. If German jews fought back it would have looked just like Gaza.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#372

Post by charles_f » Sun, May 04, 2025, 5:17 PM UTC

franze wrote: post #47

I'm now in a stage of my consulting career where I sometimes really get called into big organisation just to find out, that whatever they need to do is already panned out and they all want to do it! Still they call me cause ... it's a big decision and the "higher ups" (which quite often are not even part of the workshop/session then) want an external expert voice. cause the responsibility for this decision lies with…

I once worked on a public sector project as a consultant, spent a year doing studies for similar projects that had been done elsewhere, resulted in a document presenting a budget and timeline with options that I presented to their board of elected officials. They wanted the number and timeline to be half of what we showed, and scope unchanged.

I opened my mouth to argue, my partner at the time cut me short "we'll see what's possible".

We spent the next couple months massaging numbers under his supervision removing all contingency, selecting the most optimistic paths and assumptions, and plain lowering numbers. Until, for all intents and purposes, our document was the same but showing the numbers they wanted with out signature at the bottom.

They were very happy with our work. They're elected officials you see, they are concerned with re-election and appearing to behave reasonably with money. I got a promotion out of it.

The project ended costing 30% more than what we initially planned and took 30% more than our estimate.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#373

Post by ethbr1 » Sun, May 04, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

yusina wrote: post #351

crazygringo wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious now. If you have 440 squirrels to kill, in an airport , that are legally not allowed to leave the airport ... how the heck would you do it humanely? It feels extremely non-obvious to me. Are there extra-large portable CO2 chambers the size of a whole room or something you can rent? And whose budget is that coming out of? I'm assuming nobody's going to try to inject them all individually with som…

Getting suffocated with CO2 is also a terrible way to die. Animal welfare research is clear on that. There are other options (with other gases that just make the animal fall asleep and avoids the suffocation reflex) but they are still more costly currently. If we'd switch to those then one reason I feel uncomfortable as a meat eater would disappear.

To the how question, constructing a quick airtight chamber then flooding it with nitrogen would be more humane than a shredder, and it's something that could have been cobbled together at an airport.

The abrogation of imagination or basic empathy is the travesty here.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#374

Post by lesuorac » Sun, May 04, 2025, 5:50 PM UTC

asdf6969 wrote: post #366

scotty79 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy your steak, toss in a pot of unsalted water. Cook for a while to make it edible. Eat it when hungry. Tell me again how tasty the meat is. Do the same with rice, potatoes or lentils and you'll have completely different experience. Pick any fruit. There's even no need to boil. Tasty from the get go.

Are you seriously trying to argue that food doesn’t actually taste good if it has to be cooked first? Throw steak in a hot pan. It tastes great with no other seasonings. Tasty from the get go. Throw rice in a hot pan. It tastes awful. Therefore, rice is not tasty.

If steak was tasty you wouldn't need steak sauce /s.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#375

Post by ethbr1 » Sun, May 04, 2025, 5:52 PM UTC

yusina wrote: post #235

ethbr1 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The acute guilt levied wasn't about following orders and exterminating the ground squirrels... ... but using an industrial shredder to do it. (on 440 of them) For reference, this is an industrial shredder: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/I15kCJyl6po Anyone who did that to a live animal deserves to be in prison, orders or no. There are innumerable compassionate, humane ways to kill animals, if it's necessary.

I suppose you are vegetarian? Cause the amount of suffering that the majority of animals have endure which are killed for meat is on a similar level. (Transport to slaughterhouse and subsequent death by suffocation or boiling, depending on species.) Or rather, vegan? Since average dairy cow or hen endures quite some suffering over their whole life too. In addition to then experiencing a similar death to what animals…

Spare me the whatabout- and no-true-scotsman- isms.

People in this position had a choice: they chose a terrible option.

There weren't economies of scale. There weren't labor cost concerns. There weren't quotas.

At minimum, someone could have researched how slaughterhouses stun prior the euthanasia.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#376

Post by ethbr1 » Sun, May 04, 2025, 5:53 PM UTC

volleyball wrote: post #357

ethbr1 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The acute guilt levied wasn't about following orders and exterminating the ground squirrels... ... but using an industrial shredder to do it. (on 440 of them) For reference, this is an industrial shredder: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/I15kCJyl6po Anyone who did that to a live animal deserves to be in prison, orders or no. There are innumerable compassionate, humane ways to kill animals, if it's necessary.

Is that the type of shredder they used though? It seems too slow especially when considering live squirrels. I imagine it would be more like the one used to kill male hatchlings in the poultry industry[1]. Quicker and bit more humane. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udSiluTAOaQ (warning : potentially disturbing footage)

Article noted industrial, which means they were probably using a high-torque, low-speed machine (aimed at pallet shredding).

Re: Accountability Sinks

#377

Post by ethbr1 » Sun, May 04, 2025, 5:54 PM UTC

cruffle_duffle wrote: post #309

lelandbatey wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, just lie about the cancellation reason. *"Why are you cancelling your Comcast internet service?" Answer: "I am moving to the Solomon islands, where there is no Comcast service or business for 1000 miles in any direction (at least)."

“I’m going to prison and getting my affairs in order” is a good one too.

If you want to be adversarial, tell them you're converting to the Amish faith, and would they like to hear details about it?

Re: Accountability Sinks

#378

Post by divan » Sun, May 04, 2025, 6:00 PM UTC

gsf_emergency wrote: post #181

divan wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, and I think it gets deeper. I started reading more about history of "just culture" and it seems like historically it was the dominant culture of justice in the tribes and smaller communities. It's the _just culture_ focused on repairing the damage – for the victim and for the community – and trying to fix the reasons and integrate the offender back into life (otherwise community would end up being a bloodbath o…

My eyes opened a little bit! "Sidney Dekker" & "lese majeste" or even "Wilhoit" returned nothing interesting, so that's a new open secret (if I didn't totally misunderstand, that is) Aside: does that make "The United States " a careless sovereign (monarch) in your book? -- most criminal cases are "The U.S. vs ____": not only are community/rehabilitation afterthoughts, nobody looks forward to any pleasure of a Majesty…

The book I still have open is actually by Sidney Dekker - "Restorative Just Culture in Practice: Implementation and Evaluation". A quote:

> In 1066, with the Norman invasion of England, William the Conqueror and his successors brought into existence a legal system that gradually replaced the church and local systems of conflict resolution. For the nascent state, the legal system turned out to be useful for exerting influence and extracting money. Crimes were seen not (just) as violations of a community’s mores, or the victim’s rights. They were seen as infractions against the state, and against the ruler, the king, as a disruption of the ‘King’s peace’. Fines benefited the ruler economically and often politically. The state and the offender were the primary actors around whom the justice was organized, and the victim played a lesser role.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#379

Post by southernplaces7 » Sun, May 04, 2025, 6:25 PM UTC

>faced with the paperwork issue, airport staff threw all 440 squirrels into an industrial shredder.

Has nobody commented on the sheer macabre bloodbath that must have ensued, or that some random airport staffer were willing to carry it out right to the end, for 440 chunky, cute, furry marmots? That's some psychotically serious.. uh, dedication to job duties.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#380

Post by LorenPechtel » Sun, May 04, 2025, 7:04 PM UTC

amluto wrote: post #230

macNchz wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been on both sides of this—working behind a counter and answering phones at various jobs long ago, and being someone who often surprises family and friends with my ability to extract good outcomes from customer service—I think it’s somewhat of a misconception that being as unpleasant as possible is actually effective at getting results. I fully understand that the godawful CS mazes many companies set up wind u…

As an exception to the exception, a lot of automated telephone systems have a tree of options, and they try really hard to avoid giving you a real person, and none of the options are helpful. But some of them are programmed to detect swearing and direct users to a representative. So a valid strategy is to swear at the automated system and then be polite to the real human that you get.

Yeah, far too many systems try to cover every case in the menu and deny access to a human--but never have I seen one that actually covered anything like every case. They cover the easy stuff and you have to get hostile with the robot over anything else.

Or our local pharmacy--it has it's own number but if you actually need a human you're dumped into the general phone tree and have to go back to the pharmacy and persuade the robot to let you through to a human. And the designers never put things in the menu for the stuff that needs a human.