[HN Gopher] The Canary
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The Canary
Author : ebcode
Score : 186 points
Date : 2024-09-08 07:22 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Too bad the workers are still covered in black dust inside and
| out
| Terr_ wrote:
| > Basically no one came forward on their own: Civil servants
| appeared to lack the ability to be recognized. [...] Even their
| nominations feel modest. Never I did this, but we did this. Never
| look at me, but look at this work!
|
| Now I wonder if I should've looked at a career in government.
| Something to keep in mind the next time I find that I've somehow
| become the surviving "maintenance" developer on a project.
|
| Lots of material here, but the two main points I see about
| stopping mine collapses boil down to:
|
| 1. Make mining companies actually install a safe amount of roof-
| bolts, rather using the new technique in a half-assed way that
| saves them some money while staying _just as deadly_ as the old
| way.
|
| 2. Stop mining companies from substituting their own unsafe
| models to justify mining-away columns that are _are_ important
| for keeping everything up.
|
| _____
|
| > In 2016 -- the first year in recorded history that zero
| underground coal miners were killed by falling roofs -- Chris
| landed in a public spat. He'd seen an article by an economic
| historian about the history of roof bolts in the journal of
| Technology and Culture.
|
| > The historian wanted to argue that roof bolts had taken 20
| years to reduce fatality rates because it had taken 20 years for
| the coal mining industry to learn to use them. All by itself, the
| market had solved this worker safety problem! The government's
| role, in his telling, was as a kind of gentle helpmate of
| industry. "It was kind of amazing," said Chris. "What actually
| happened was the regulators were finally empowered to regulate.
| Regulators needed to be able to enforce. He elevated the role of
| technology. He minimized the role of regulators."
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| It's an interesting story, but I did wonder how much the
| transition to mountain top removal of coal and away from deep
| mines contributed.
|
| As the text makes clear the industry was mostly motivated by the
| cost of roof falls, not the deaths and injuries they caused.
|
| Random AI quote from Google Search: > Surface mining is more
| cost-effective than underground mining, and accounts for over 60%
| of coal production in the US.
| pm215 wrote:
| The industry was motivated by costs, but the government
| regulation was motivated by deaths and injuries. And the graph
| in the article certainly rather suggests that when the
| government regulated that's when the number of deaths fell...
| boxed wrote:
| There was a pretty sharp drop before too.
| snowflakeandrey wrote:
| I wonder if that's because as regulation is considered and
| debated, industry incentives start to align as they attempt
| to show they're "regulating themselves just fine".
| jessriedel wrote:
| The deaths themselves are costly to the org, both because of
| insurance and because it's terrible for morale.
| myrmidon wrote:
| Do you mean contributed in a negative way, because subsurface
| mining had to compete on cost with strip mines?
|
| From the article it appears to me that the mines still stayed
| somewhat viable despite the added safety, and were mainly
| lacking a mechanism (=> the regulator) to have everyone
| prioritize worker safety sufficiently at first...
| Stratoscope wrote:
| This is quite an amazing and touching story. A must-read.
|
| I think the original title is better than the submitted one:
|
| _The Canary_
| K0balt wrote:
| Interesting article. Had to read it, trying to figure out why
| coal miners were in danger of falling off of roofs lol.
| myrmidon wrote:
| Excellent article.
|
| It is only mentioned in passing, but being 60 years ahead of
| schedule and 30 billion dollars under projected costs is such a
| boss move.
|
| Having stories like these better represented in media would help
| a lot in preventing general apathy and disillusion toward
| politics/government-- it might even help channel slight
| patriotism in a very positive way (toward improving
| infrastructure/society).
|
| In western nations, we have reduced nationalism (and national
| pride in general) by a LOT for the last generations (especially
| on the left side of the political spectrum), and I do believe
| that there is a significant hidden price to pay for this (as
| society and country).
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _toward improving infrastructure /society_
|
| Having moved someplace where the general attitude seems to me*
| to be "we don't have a wrong side of the tracks, we're not
| barbarians after all" I'll vouch that being surrounded by this
| variety of patriotism is indeed pleasant.
|
| * the indigenous view things differently: my wife (who has wild
| stories about her youth like being in the same city during the
| mass shooting) and I were going to an art opening run by the
| olympic organisation in our capital city, and directly in front
| of the venue she asked "can we park here? it's such a _sketchy_
| neighbourhood "; I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and
| shake her while yelling "WTF? sketchy? I've been broken down in
| NWA-era Compton, and this here reads to me as like, maybe,
| _lower_ middle class? "
|
| Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LREf9SXfHBI&t=13s
| defrost wrote:
| Seems pretty wholesome and folksy:
| https://youtu.be/K6D5xpCgETk?t=16
| immibis wrote:
| I get the opposite impression in Berlin. Nothing that's as
| dangerous as people seem to think happens actually happens.
|
| I happened to be hanging around sn area where some anarchist
| activists set on fire on New Year's Eve a few years ago... in
| the middle of the closed off road far away from other
| flammable objects, which the fire department only got to once
| it was already dying down. Yet the reporting and public
| perception of that event was as if the whole block burned
| down and you cannot ever go in that area or you will be
| arsonized. Police presence was ramped up at all following
| NYEs and fireworks were banned in that particular area,
| enforced with a police cordon, as if that was supposed to
| achieve anything. (There were illegal fireworks there anyway)
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| The german-speaking space is yes world-master in ,,motzen"
| (bellyaching).
|
| [then again, I made my peace with that after learning that
| ,,na, und?" is not only a thing, but has been perfectly
| cromulent since at least the 1500s]
| peterldowns wrote:
| You may enjoy the book How Big Things Get Done by Bent
| Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner. It details quite a few large-scale
| projects, mostly those that failed and went way over budget,
| and tries to come up with a model for why this happens so
| often. The examples it uses of how to do things well are really
| exciting -- did you know the Empire State building was also
| built ahead of schedule and under budget?
| FredPret wrote:
| Another book about a civil servant doing great things is
| "Racing for the bomb" about General Leslie Groves who built
| the Pentagon and led the Manhattan Project, completing both
| in record time.
| peterldowns wrote:
| I just finished The Making Of The Atomic Bomb by Richard
| Rhodes, and Groves comes across as a very fascinating guy.
| I'll add this to my bookmarks list, thank you. Any chance
| you know of a good biography of Henry Stimson?
| 0xEF wrote:
| Your comment has given me something to contemplate.
|
| Growing up, I was taught that we (the US) was the greatest
| country on Earth. You can only imagine my disillusionment upon
| entering voting-age and adulthood. The cracks in the veneer
| were starting to show.
|
| Fast forward to the Obama presidency, when Hope was a selling
| point. By then I had no real faith in the US. I'd experienced
| the lingering impact of financial destitution, homelessness and
| addiction, which our country would rather pretend does not
| exist here. I'd been exposed to things that made it feel like
| we lived in a society that put more value in appearances than
| it did substance. The food turned out to be fake. The
| educations we were getting turned out to be a lie. The idea
| that one could work hard and succeed was all smoke and mirrors.
| Our flag was starting to be co-opted by racists and fascists,
| the early bubblings of the boil-over we are now experiencing.
| So, it was easy to see why Hope was a marketing pitch.
|
| But these days, I am trying so hard to reclaim whatever love I
| can for the US. There are good people here trying to do good
| things, but they so easily get drowned out by the alarm bells
| and angry shouts, that it is difficult to see or hear them.
| Even my initial approach to this article was tainted by my
| experiences, leaving me to assume it was another "feel good"
| piece about something that _should_ be normalized, but instead
| is treated like the exception to the cynical rule.
|
| I will try to find more stories like this.
| myrmidon wrote:
| Fully agree with your attitude.
|
| Its always easy to fall into cynicism and and its trivial to
| justify to yourself and others, but in the end, its a shit
| attitude that is more likely to do harm than any good...
| panarky wrote:
| This article is a particularly relevant example of why
| there's broad support in the US for gutting the national
| government, eliminating entire departments, cutting those
| that remain by large percentages, and replacing the
| nonpartisan experts who somehow survive the cuts with know-
| nothings who can pass a test of loyalty and ideological
| purity.
|
| Who is willing to spend 60 to 90 minutes carefully reading
| 12,450 words, with technical vocabulary like "longwall
| mining" and "abutment load", with long sentences that contain
| multiple clauses?
|
| Who has the sustained attention and intellectual curiosity
| needed to grasp abstract relationships between ideas and
| complex, multi-layered concepts, such as the tension between
| safety and profitability, the inherent incentives of market
| economies, the power imbalance between workers and owners,
| and the long-term systemic changes resulting from the well
| financed campaign to blame government and collective action
| for systemic market failure?
|
| Very few people have the capacity, attention, interest or
| stamina to thoughtfully read an article like this and
| understand exactly why the wealthy mine owners wouldn't fix
| this problem on their own, why the market couldn't fix this
| problem, why it required deep expertise from a government
| worker to fix this problem.
|
| It's far easier to simply parrot the idea that government is
| the problem, that corporations need less regulation, that tax
| cuts for the insanely wealthy will magically trickle down to
| workers, that our many serious problems can be solved by
| concentrating migrants and homeless in camps, that protesters
| should be imprisoned or killed, that democratic elections are
| fraudulent, that only a strongman ruler can fix it.
| elevation wrote:
| > broad support in the US for gutting the national
| government
|
| I support balancing the federal budget. Since the US
| government spends roughly twice its revenue, achieving
| balance would realistically require unprecedented "gutting"
| of some agencies.
|
| However, I question the idea of "broad support" for such
| gutting. Regardless of who wins elections, the federal
| deficit, federal budget, federal employment rolls, federal
| tax code etc, have only ever increased. Nothing has
| interrupted this pattern for as long as I've lived.
|
| I don't know of "broad support" for anything except
| complaining about it.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| And there's a further layer in the onion: the bureau of
| mines was shut down except this one guy's department. And
| he said it was actually a good thing.
|
| Removing code is hard, I assume it's also hard with
| government agencies, but sometimes it's really useful to
| do.
| FredPret wrote:
| Looking at your country from the outside, both your initial
| overoptimism and your subsequent disillusionment seem
| inaccurate.
|
| There's a ton of propaganda both ways; all of it is based on
| blowing some small fact completely out of proportion.
|
| The US is awesome but no place is perfect.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _I will try to find more stories like this._
|
| No offense, but it sounds like your problem is that you spend
| _too_ much time "finding stories", and end up cynical and
| pessimistic about the the country.
|
| But, back in reality, the US is very wealthy, has amazing
| educational institutions, unlimited opportunity and guess
| what? Not everyone who waves the flag is a fascist or racist.
| Some of those people long for the way things were...just like
| you seem to be doing.
|
| It's not perfect, but the US is still a great place.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| > Growing up, I was taught that we (the US) was the greatest
| country on Earth. You can only imagine my disillusionment
| upon entering voting-age and adulthood.
|
| As a side note, your experience is similar to many other
| adults living in many other countries.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Such people should be much more visible in the world:
|
| Frazer Lockhart
|
| Manager, Rocky Flats Project Department of Energy Evergreen,
| Colorado
|
| https://servicetoamericamedals.org/honorees/frazer-lockhart-...
|
| I think the reduction in national pride in some nations has
| more to do with it being obvious that many of the people
| running the country at a high level have no loyalty to the
| people; that kind of thing trickles down and poisons us all.
| triclops200 wrote:
| I think you might enjoy the book "manufacturing consent," it
| answers a lot of the hows and whys of stuff like this as well
| as provides some general thoughts around the phenomenon of
| patriotism and why it might be on the decline in some groups
| (though it's actually on the rise, statistically, in other
| large segments of the US)
| djangelic wrote:
| The documentary was also insightful:
| https://youtu.be/Li2m3rvsO0I?si=QsJLtqES3AEhbcEO
| pessimizer wrote:
| > In western nations, we have reduced nationalism (and national
| pride in general) by a LOT for the last generations (especially
| on the left side of the political spectrum)
|
| We really haven't, we've reduced national jingoism and
| converted it into identity jingoism, then redefined modernity
| as a harmonious collection of designated and licensed
| identities _at war with the corruption of evil foreign
| influences._ We 've continued or escalated international
| aggression, to the extent that the fear of or the desire for
| revenge upon foreigners has become the main issue in politics.
| It is absolutely mundane now to accuse your neighbor of being
| the servant of a foreign power.
|
| In western nations, we have reduced or eliminated civics
| education, which was our only chance to tell people about
| popular sovereignty, that government springs from their rights
| and is for their comfort. Now many of them think that their
| rights have been granted for the government's protection.
| Nationalism is poison.
| myrmidon wrote:
| > We really haven't, we've reduced national jingoism and
| converted it into identity jingoism
|
| This is kinda what I mean-- instead of identifying with the
| nation (freedom & opportunity), a lot of people have latched
| onto their party instead, and this is an obvious disadvantage
| for social cohesion (you could even reframe this a bit as
| freedom vs opportunity, an interesting thought).
|
| I find it curious how your wording implies
| direction/intention/agency in these changes, which i
| personally don't believe to exist. Sure, some people owning
| large media might sit at a longer oar, but in the end we're
| all just along for the ride and no single person or entity
| really sits at the helm and controls how culture and society
| changes (in my view).
|
| edit: I honestly think that education is roughly better than
| it ever was-- I would not really blame it for this despite
| some failings (but got no US education personally).
| throwpoaster wrote:
| "And what I took away from that was that I should be able to make
| my own decisions about right and wrong, and whatever anyone else
| thinks doesn't matter."
|
| A disturbing statement from a civil servant. Glad it all worked
| out in the end.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Very disturbing to have civil servants who were once children
| with underdeveloped sensibilities.
| motohagiography wrote:
| these public service awards should be bigger than the oscars. I
| take a lot of shots at govt because I've seen it from the inside
| and seen some of the low things the people in it do, but
| sometimes the other ones solve incredible coordination problems
| like the ones described.
|
| the way for it to succeed is for projects and people involved to
| have shorter exits, as professionalizing public service
| accumulates a lot of dead wood that becomes indifferent to any
| given mission and success becomes the exception. the current
| military is a bad example of a bureaucracy, but the idea of a
| short duration national service would create talent pipelines and
| mission focus, along with national cohesion.
| nxobject wrote:
| I imagine this is why in certain fields with a regulatory
| structure people pop in and out of industry - money, sadly, is
| that recognition, although it is recognition in the end.
| motohagiography wrote:
| one of the best teams I've worked on was in public service
| with other consultants who were extremely mission focused.
|
| what made it successful was the team related the way special
| operations relate to regular forces. I'd bet if you went down
| the list of Sammy nominees, or looked at most accomplishments
| in public service, they were done by people who succeeded
| outside the mainline org reporting.
|
| if you look at the way the military uses special forces to
| achieve objectives, there is probably an analogous model in
| public service. to some extent it's done in consulting, but
| there is so much partisan bloat and low-level fiefdom in it
| that there isn't a coherent operating model.
|
| the 18F program that became the US Digital Service was a task
| force that had huge impact. there are certain whitehouse
| initiatives around cybersecurity that worked in a similar
| way. maybe the opportunity is to create a special operations
| doctrine for public services, where it codifies how there's a
| specific way to use that kind of initiative and talent, and
| when not to.
| nxobject wrote:
| I had brief stints in state and county government doing policy
| work, and I remember a piece of advice for how you want to do
| work like Marks': you want to be high enough in goverment that
| you can make an impact, work with interesting problems in the
| real world - but not high enough that you get affected by regular
| changes in elected leadership, with eventually reverberate down
| the hierarchy. But in public service the compensation for doing
| good work is really just the ability to do more of that work,
| without being bothered too much about having to accumulate a fat
| CV (either in academia or industry).
|
| I'm glad he found his niche, and managed to survive so many
| administrative rehousings.
| zavec wrote:
| Among all the other great things, I found the bit about how
| cathedrals were built by trial and error really interesting. It
| had never occurred to me that operating on that timescale you
| could make changes from one bay to the next based on how the
| first one was reacting.
| thushan wrote:
| This piece is beautiful.
|
| I hope it gives you the tingles, and color on the people doing
| the hard work. Michael Lewis knows how to spot colorful
| characters and frame a thesis of a bigger idea around them. But
| there's lots of people like this in government, finding ways to
| nudges to be a "more perfect" version of our country -- often
| exhaustingly facing headwinds to do so.
|
| I'm an acquired YC founder (S11 - Launchpad Toys - Google - Led
| early LLM efforts there), now serving in federal government at
| the U.S. Digital Service. It's the White House's technology arm
| where we bring people from technology and industry for 2 year
| "tours of duty" and help to modernize our systems and make our
| digital experiences better (Fixing Healthcare.gov, and recently
| shipping IRS Direct File are some of success stories).
|
| Your country could use you.
|
| We need experienced technologists across
| eng/product/design/business - people like YC founders and HN
| readers here.
|
| Consider taking a look: USDS.gov
| tjridesbikes wrote:
| I've taken an honest look at USDS, but I decided I couldn't
| afford to work for them, even though I would love to. I live in
| one of the most expensive cities in the US, and salaries +
| total comp form USDS are far lower than what I'm earning now,
| even at a (well-funded, non-ai) non-profit. I'd have to start
| at salary grade 15, the highest one, to even begin approaching
| what I earn now.
|
| I'm not even living a life of tech-bro luxury. I've got a
| mortgage, bills to pay, retirement to save for, groceries,
| transportation, etc that take a significant plurality of my
| take-home pay. Sure, my standard of living is a bit higher than
| average (I have a penchant for expensive bicycles...), but that
| doesn't add up to the pay cut I'd have to take to work at any
| salary grade besides the literal highest one.
|
| I would adore working for the government on technology. I work
| at a non-profit for its social impact, and I can't see myself
| working in ads, ai, finance, or other place that doesn't
| contribute to the social good. I wouldn't expect to be paid at
| FAANG/MAMAA/whatever levels, but something competitive with
| what I see private companies offering would get me to sign up
| in (almost) an instant.
|
| Maybe I'm missing something?
| shawndrost wrote:
| Government jobs have a fixed pay grade that isn't changing.
| It doesn't afford an upper-middle-class life in an expensive
| city. You may find yourself wanting both, but you can't have
| them. If you already get that, you're not missing anything!
|
| If you have a deeper question about why the US government
| chooses this outcome, here is the answer: It is ideologically
| closer to Mondrian than to other US corporations. This
| ideology makes it hard to hire for certain higher-wage
| skills; they have to find workers who will accept a pay cut.
| (Mondrian's maximum wage ratio -- the wage of the CEO divided
| by the lowest-paid worker -- is six. Private sector CEOs
| might get 10x more than Mondrian's CEO; Mondrian's CEO makes
| ideologically-motivated sacrifices. Something similar is
| happening for high-skill devs at Mondrian and the USG.) To
| some degree this ideology is thrust upon the largest entities
| whose workforces tend to unionize and lobby for similar
| outcomes; to some degree it is an emergent outcome of
| principled and political choices by legislators and
| executives.
|
| Go USG! Such an inspiring organization. I can understand why
| people are cynical -- it's too much to understand; anything
| big has lots of ugliness; much of the Rep party has been
| ideologically opposed to Mondrian; etc -- but I just think
| it's so beautiful.
| immibis wrote:
| Now start your own company that supplies the USG, and you
| can have whatever pay scale you like within the amount of
| money they give you...
| vundercind wrote:
| As someone not in the third trimodal tech pay-hump (I can't
| possibly pass the interviews, I'm all used up for the day
| after 90-120 minutes of far-less-stressful ordinary
| interviewing) I'd considered it, because the pay cut would be
| fairly small, I find the mission appealing, and federal
| government benefits and retirement are really good...
|
| Then I noticed the "term of service" stuff and nope'd out.
| Without the retirement, it's a terrible deal even for me.
| macrael wrote:
| Very cool story. The technical bit at the heart of it, that Mark
| applied stats to determine the safe amount of column supports for
| ceilings rather than relying on various engineering calculations
| based on physics that all disagreed, is great. And it's wild that
| he had the data to collect those stats because of regulators
| requiring reporting on it, but that that data had sat around un-
| used for decades waiting for someone to actually turn it into
| safety.
| mud_dauber wrote:
| I lost an uncle to black lung in a WV underground mine. One
| grandfather lost an eye (explosion), the other broke his back.
|
| I'm happy for Chris's dedication - but this industry needs to
| die.
| seanc wrote:
| Michael Lewis' book "The Fifth Risk" has other stories of
| exceptional public servants, and a very insightful commentary on
| public service in general.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Risk
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