It may well be (and it certainly sounds it in this case), but I wouldn't always just assume profit > cost logic. When you're dealing with heavy machinery and machines that can kill with a half second of inattention or slip, then deaths will occasionally happen regardless of how careful you try to be.
It's all just a game of numbers. If something is 99.99% safe then that sounds great, but that means a failure rate of 1 per 10,000 which means you're going to see large numbers of those fails. This is why even in a society of perfect drivers you'd likely still see thousands of people killed in crashes each year. There's enough entropy, and a large enough sample, that deaths will always remain relatively high.
A relative of mine has managed building sites in the UK for decades. Nobody has ever died or had a life-changing injury. The site in the story has had multiple incidents just this year.
What's the difference?
The fines for safety failures leading to deaths in the UK are frequently six figures and sometimes seven. So management takes safety seriously and accident rates are very low.
Funny here is not used in the humerous sense, but rather the other two definitions given in any good dictionary as "used to emphasize that something is serious or should be taken seriously." and "difficult to explain or understand; strange or odd." or even the given example of the last quote as "unusual, especially in such a way as to arouse suspicion."
Replace 'funny' with 'weird' (in a slightly sarcastic tone for sure) and the comment makes sense whilst being less offensive to the reader and not diminishing someones death.
When it's the CEO or if it's about silicon valley companies. I don't remember ever reading on HN about accidents in the shoe factory or in the construction site.
> I don't remember ever reading on HN about accidents in the shoe factory or in the construction site.
There are very few HN stories about shoe factories or construction sites full stop.
That's a whole other issue.
The hook for this story is Occ Health and Safety, many people have an interest in safety and the fact that a CEO died hasn't stirred interest out of pity or sympathy for a CEO, it's schadenfreude that lax safety standards caught someone that could have improved those standards.
"Line worker dies because CEO decided security is bad for the bottom line. Company gets a wrist slap" is a "dog bites man" story.
When CEO dies for the same reason it's "the universe randomly hands out some justice" story, which is always a good story.
It may well be (and it certainly sounds it in this case), but I wouldn't always just assume profit > cost logic. When you're dealing with heavy machinery and machines that can kill with a half second of inattention or slip, then deaths will occasionally happen regardless of how careful you try to be.
It's all just a game of numbers. If something is 99.99% safe then that sounds great, but that means a failure rate of 1 per 10,000 which means you're going to see large numbers of those fails. This is why even in a society of perfect drivers you'd likely still see thousands of people killed in crashes each year. There's enough entropy, and a large enough sample, that deaths will always remain relatively high.
A relative of mine has managed building sites in the UK for decades. Nobody has ever died or had a life-changing injury. The site in the story has had multiple incidents just this year.
What's the difference?
The fines for safety failures leading to deaths in the UK are frequently six figures and sometimes seven. So management takes safety seriously and accident rates are very low.
It is about the money.
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It's neither funny nor true.
eg: Tesla Doors: 15 People Have Died in Crashes Where it Wouldn't Open (18 hours ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46365597)
and a host of similar stories about worker / third party accidents and fatalities related to tech.
Funny here is not used in the humerous sense, but rather the other two definitions given in any good dictionary as "used to emphasize that something is serious or should be taken seriously." and "difficult to explain or understand; strange or odd." or even the given example of the last quote as "unusual, especially in such a way as to arouse suspicion."
Replace 'funny' with 'weird' (in a slightly sarcastic tone for sure) and the comment makes sense whilst being less offensive to the reader and not diminishing someones death.
When it's the CEO or if it's about silicon valley companies. I don't remember ever reading on HN about accidents in the shoe factory or in the construction site.
> I don't remember ever reading on HN about accidents in the shoe factory or in the construction site.
There are very few HN stories about shoe factories or construction sites full stop.
That's a whole other issue.
The hook for this story is Occ Health and Safety, many people have an interest in safety and the fact that a CEO died hasn't stirred interest out of pity or sympathy for a CEO, it's schadenfreude that lax safety standards caught someone that could have improved those standards.
The same reason starving children in Sudan rarely make the news: It's "business as usual".
Systemic issues make poor clickbait.
This isn’t construction site news, or shoe factory news. This article does feel kinda offtopic, so it’s not surprising we don’t see many like it.
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If you don't like HN, stop using it.
Wow, a thought-terminating cliche in the wild. Did I say I don't like it?
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