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> We need to avoid treating deaths as progress in the pursuit of better things

Au contraire. Go read building codes some time. There's a saying that they're "written in blood" - every bit, no matter how obvious or arbitrary seeming, was earned through some real-world failure.

The death itself isn't progress, of course. But we owe it to the person to who died to learn from what happened.




Federal Aviation Administration's Joint Order 7110.65 is exactly what you are talking about. It is the manual that Air Traffic Controllers live by. To include situations that involve diverging aircraft or taxiing instructions and how to handle said situations. The entire manual was practically written from real-world experience.


This reminds me of the story behind the iron ring and the collapse of the second narrows bridge in Vancouver, BC.

http://www2.ensc.sfu.ca/undergrad/euss/enscquire/Vol10No2/pa...


It used to be the case that those “codes” were also written in the blood of the builders – as per the Code of Hammurabi.


You might enjoy _The History of Fire Escapes: How to Fail_, a talk Tanya Reilly gave at a DevOps Days conference earlier this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02KEKtc-5Dc


Not just building codes, but a lot of car safety regulations and practices too. Stuff like crumple zones, ABS, breakaway road signs, safety glass, etc.


You seriously think Uber wouldn't try to claim "commercial in confidence" or "trade secrets" rights to all the data from every single death?


Clearly I think Uber is a benevolent entity that has all of our best interests at heart. Also, I eat babies.

Or, you know, don't jump on comments for their not explicitly addressing the hobby horse you're riding. Frankly I just wanted to express a better engineering context around the loss of life without getting into the political bullshit for once.




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