tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7578125528475198742.post469813212584818669..comments2023-05-11T03:06:59.054-07:00Comments on The Well Run Dry: Airlines And Moral Systems FailureTH in SoChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00483293929968668475noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7578125528475198742.post-66468557491026316222009-07-24T15:51:52.349-07:002009-07-24T15:51:52.349-07:00Thanks TH. I have a very minor blog called Potemki...Thanks TH. I have a very minor blog called Potemkin's Office and have been posting there very sporadically about management myths and things like this. I am thinking of putting my comment up there, expanded a bit, and linking back to your post here. Feel free to use anything I have said here, as you see fit, with my blessings.<br /><br />I am no engineer, and certainly no programmer; just an engineer's kid - who got into science for the love of it, and thinks like a scientist pretty much all the time. <br /><br />I would be very very interested in your thoughts on this subject; you ARE an expert in this area.<br /><br />By the way, I coined the term 'thanatoeconomics' back in 1997, in several realspace conversations, to describe our economic system, because it truly is built on human sacrifice. <br /><br />In order to function, our system actually requires a permanent underclass, AND needs a certain number of people to be deprived of their livelihoods at regular intervals. [Consider the obscene fact that a company's stock price goes up when it indulges in mass firings.] This same system places little or no value on preserving human lives; business schools in this country will actually teach you how to determine when liability exceeds profitability - aka, how many people you can afford to kill before it gets too expensive. <br /><br />I have long intended to write about thanatoeconomic theory [it's not a theory, of course, it's stark reality], but most of my blogging time has been invested in Gale Warnings for the past 3 years, more or less as a prelude. Thanatoeconomics, after all, is the ultimate consequence of an abusive society.<br /><br />I've seen the term used once recently by a European writer, who coined it independently. Feel free to use it yourself; I can think of no more fitting name for the system in which we find ourselves.Stormchildhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05039949137714076734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7578125528475198742.post-35106184908044111612009-07-24T12:11:22.805-07:002009-07-24T12:11:22.805-07:00Thank you, Stormchild. I am thinking of making yo...Thank you, Stormchild. I am thinking of making your comment into a complete post, as I think it illustrates both the diminishing returns of system complexity and the dangers of trying to lower human capital costs by excessive system automation. You are also quite right about how our present economic system sacrifices human life for the sake of profit.<br /><br />I think a growing number of people are giving up flying...TH in SoChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00483293929968668475noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7578125528475198742.post-68571557550980984522009-07-24T06:55:23.495-07:002009-07-24T06:55:23.495-07:00Well said...
I would have to add my own concerns,...Well said...<br /><br />I would have to add my own concerns, regarding over-reliance on computerized systems. <br /><br />I no longer fly at all, but when I was still required to fly on business I did my best to avoid ever getting on an Airbus. <br /><br />When this product was first introduced, there were a shocking number of crashes that, on investigation, appeared to be caused by the computerized control system overriding pilot commands. Planes were flying into hillsides and mountains while the pilots were doing their frantic, doomed best to get more altitude, and the idiot IT system was stubbornly refusing to let them. <br /><br />Washington DC residents were recently treated to another sample of this, on the ground, in the horrific Metro subway crash that killed at least 9 people, including the Commander of the DC National Guard... and his wife. One train suddenly picked up speed and rammed into another from behind. <br /><br />Blame-the-operator-of-the-ramming-train was the first, cowardly, predictable response. She was texting. She was new. It had to be her fault, just because...<br /><br />NTSB investigations quickly revealed that the operator was doing everything humanly possible to stop her train. But, again, it was being run by the IT system and she could not override it. <br /><br />NTSB investigations have also now revealed that it was - again - the IT system, essentially, that killed her and 8 of her passengers. It was failing to detect trains at multiple locations in the Metro track web, and the train she rammed 'vanished' from the sensor system. Whereupon the computerized control system picked up her train and smashed it, full speed, into the train it didn't see.<br /><br />What's more, this 'loss of trains' from the sensing system has been a problem for at least two years; and Metro KNEW about it. Did they do what could be done to permit operator override in danger situations? Pretty obviously not.<br /><br />Even more disturbing is the fact that Metro has now, finally, contracted to develop a system that will actually produce alerts when such detection failures occur, and the press release about this calmly states that NO SUCH SYSTEMS CURRENTLY EXIST.<br /><br />I'm sorry, TH, I know you work in the IT field and I also know you are a TRUE engineer, which means you try your best not only to anticipate failures, but to build in backups and failsafes. If every engineer and programmer was a TH, I'd hop on any plane, train, or automobile anytime. But they're not. <br /><br />Any program is only as good as its programmer. Any system is only as good as its engineers. There are too many corner-cutters in the design area, too many corner-cutters supervising them, too many bean counters putting profits above anything else. <br /><br />After all, it's nobody THEY know getting killed on these things. THEY fly Learjets and Gulfstreams...<br /><br />... which brings me to the sad fate of <a href="http://www.golf.com/golf/tours_news/article/0,28136,1904192-4,00.html" rel="nofollow">Payne Stewart,</a> and all aboard his private jet, en route to Palm Springs in1999 ... <br /><br />but I'll let the link above retell that story. My point is that we live in an economic system that rests, ultimately, on human sacrifice, and almost none of us realize either this fact or its implications.Stormchildhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05039949137714076734noreply@blogger.com