Speaking of engineering consent, the coverage of the Baltimore cargo ship crash presents a perfect case study of literally engineering consent on engineering solutions, a kind of negative variant of Naomi Klein's "disaster capitalism" (in this case, the disaster is being used to cover up real solutions instead of providing a sham rationale for corporate "reform").
The headlines read that the bridge "collapsed", when in fact it was knocked down. The "collapse" metaphor attempts to shoehorn a shipping safety issue into an infrastructure investment issue.
This does huge things: 1) it blames government and allocates the costs of both the bridge rebuild and future prevention strategies onto the public taxpayer; and
2) it lets the entire global logistics system off the hook from multi-billon dollar costs of paying for the bridge replacement and new prevention measures, like regulatory safety mandates like tug boat escorts and dual redundant power and navigation systems on these huge cargo ships and repeal of liability laws that provide huge subsidies and undermine safety.
As an illustration, NPR just interviewed a structural engineer and the entire focus was on bridge engineering, collapse causes, and engineered devices to deflect ships away from crashing into bridges. When the final question was asked: how can new prevent future vessel strikes, the structural engineer proposed more engineering and said nothing about real safety plans and regulations.
Not that industry shouldn’t be held duly accountable, but at least infrastructure is a reasonable thing for taxpayer money to be spent on. As opposed to what hawks like Lieberman would propose.
Well, yes and no. Public dollars paid for that bridge in the first place. My opinion is that those responsible for knocking it down should pay for its restoration, the environmental remediation, and losses incurred because of the downtime caused by the crash. Not to mention the pain and suffering of the families of the workers who were killed. That most of all.
Speaking of engineering consent, the coverage of the Baltimore cargo ship crash presents a perfect case study of literally engineering consent on engineering solutions, a kind of negative variant of Naomi Klein's "disaster capitalism" (in this case, the disaster is being used to cover up real solutions instead of providing a sham rationale for corporate "reform").
The headlines read that the bridge "collapsed", when in fact it was knocked down. The "collapse" metaphor attempts to shoehorn a shipping safety issue into an infrastructure investment issue.
This does huge things: 1) it blames government and allocates the costs of both the bridge rebuild and future prevention strategies onto the public taxpayer; and
2) it lets the entire global logistics system off the hook from multi-billon dollar costs of paying for the bridge replacement and new prevention measures, like regulatory safety mandates like tug boat escorts and dual redundant power and navigation systems on these huge cargo ships and repeal of liability laws that provide huge subsidies and undermine safety.
As an illustration, NPR just interviewed a structural engineer and the entire focus was on bridge engineering, collapse causes, and engineered devices to deflect ships away from crashing into bridges. When the final question was asked: how can new prevent future vessel strikes, the structural engineer proposed more engineering and said nothing about real safety plans and regulations.
Not that industry shouldn’t be held duly accountable, but at least infrastructure is a reasonable thing for taxpayer money to be spent on. As opposed to what hawks like Lieberman would propose.
Well, yes and no. Public dollars paid for that bridge in the first place. My opinion is that those responsible for knocking it down should pay for its restoration, the environmental remediation, and losses incurred because of the downtime caused by the crash. Not to mention the pain and suffering of the families of the workers who were killed. That most of all.
Oh Christ. I'm truly frightened for my country now. I really am. The idiots are in charge.