Comment by npunt
7 months ago
> You don't injure yourself with existing saws if you follow safety protocols. Then people don't and get hurt, which is entirely from not following safety protocols.
For what it's worth, this argument could be applied to anything extremely dangerous that just so happened to have some safety protocols written for it. It's an argument in a vacuum.
Having safety protocols doesn't matter if it's something deployed in situations where people are under a lot of stress or tired from working a lot and are still required to work. Ensuring safety requires us going beyond 'you should have followed the rules', you have to consider the whole context and all the facts. The facts show Tablesaws are footguns.
> For what it's worth, this argument could be applied to anything extremely dangerous that just so happened to have some safety protocols written for it. It's an argument in a vacuum.
Some products are extremely dangerous, like construction explosives, or cars. And yet many people operate them safely for years without incident. Other people get themselves killed. That doesn't mean it's the manufacturer's fault if one of their customers decides to go to a bar and then get behind the wheel.
Conversely, some products are dangerous when used as directed, for example certain poisonous plants that herbal sociopaths will advise you to eat, which provides an obvious distinction with sharp objects whose manufacturers explicitly advise you not to stick your fingers in.
> Having safety protocols doesn't matter if it's something deployed in situations where people are under a lot of stress or tired from working a lot and are still required to work.
It isn't the manufacturer that caused you to be stressed or tired or created any obligation for you to work under those conditions.
> Ensuring safety requires us going beyond 'you should have followed the rules', you have to consider the whole context and all the facts.
There is no "ensuring" safety. You can very easily mangle or kill yourself with a kitchen knife if you use it wrong, but whose fault is that?
My post was not about manufacturers or liablity, so I don't know why you're arguing that here. This entire reply feels argumentative.
To turn your car example around, a ton of regulations exist for safety features in cars. Why not for table saws?
> My post was not about manufacturers or liablity, so I don't know why you're arguing that here.
Because that was the context of the post you replied to.
> To turn your car example around, a ton of regulations exist for safety features in cars. Why not for table saws?
Regulation of this type generally falls into two categories.
The first is sensible new safety technologies that are in the process of being adopted by the market anyway. Legislators then race to mandate them so they can try to take credit for the resulting safety improvement that would have happened regardless.
The second is incumbents who have invented something weak and then discover that their "feature" is failing in the market because it's burdensome to use or isn't worth the cost, so they try to have it mandated.
Both of these are dumb. The second one is more dumb, but we can get a better understanding of how by noticing the problem with the first: It's mandating a particular technology. Now nobody can invent something better because better is different and different is prohibited.
It also eliminates nuance and context. For example, package delivery trucks are required to have seat belts like anything else. But the drivers don't use them, because they'd be getting in the truck, putting on the seat belt, driving ten feet to the next house and then taking it back off again. It would be better to design the vehicle to be driven while standing up and then use some alternate mechanism to restrain the driver in the event of a crash, like a padded barrier at the level of the driver's chest and waist which would still be in place even when the driver only expects to be in the vehicle for ten seconds. But that's not allowed, so the mandate precludes a passive safety feature in favor of a manual one that the drivers often don't use.