Re: Stories that made you cry


David M. Palmer wrote:
> In article <1134320841.228298.71280@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Ray
> Cunningham <raycun@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > David M. Palmer wrote:
> > > In article <1134261429.601268.107500@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Ray
> > > Cunningham <raycun@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > The current system does not prevent all possible failure modes. No
> > > system does. There is often a detectable gap between 'bad design' and
> > > 'absolute perfection'.
> ...
> > You know, I don't have a lot of confidence in the systems that prevent
> > failures due to blown fuses, contaminated fuel....
>
> Good. Because that kind of faith could get you into heaven, a lot
> faster than you expect.

confidence != faith

> > > > As I understand the situation, the blaster is there specifically to
> > > > enable the pilot to carry out the policy of spacing stowaways. If you
> > > > want to post the relevant section of the story...
> > >
> > > The very first mention of the blaster in the story:
> > >
> > > : "I said OUT!!!"
> > > :
> > > : He heard the stowaway move to obey, and he waited with his eyes
> > > : alert on the door and his hand near the blaster at his side.
> >
> > I did ask for the relevant section, not the first mention.
>
> And I gave you a relevant section. If you can find a more relevant
> section, go ahead and post it.

I don't have access to the story. If you don't have access to the
relevant section, fine.

> > "As I said, I don't know enough about the situation to say whether it's
> > stupid or bad luck." I'm not assuming anything, either way. Maybe it
> > was bad luck, maybe it was bad planning. Are you willing to consider
> > both possibilities, or are you going to insist it was entirely down to
> > bad luck?
>
> You are, e.g., assuming that the only purpose a blaster could possibly
> have is to space stowaways.

No, I'm assuming that the pilot was issued with the blaster for the
purpose of carrying out the policy of spacing stowaways, not that this
is the only possible use it could have. Again, if you want to post the
relevant section...

> > That's not necessary for my argument. You were saying that in your
> > ideal orientation, passengers would be told that areas marked
> > UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL KEEP
> > OUT!!! are dangerous. I'm saying that there is no indication that there
> > was any such linkage in the orientation the stowaway got. She expected
> > to be punished for passing the sign, but didn't know it was dangerous.
> > This is a problem, even if she knows that _some_ of those signs do mark
> > dangerous areas.
>
> You are assuming that there wasn't such an orientation.

Yes, because as I said earlier, I think that if there was such an
orientation, the pilot would have asked the girl why she ignored it. I
think such an orientation would go a long way towards absolving the
convent of shared responsibility for the girl's death. Do you agree
with me that there _should_ have been such an orientation?

You are
> assuming that there was no way at all that the girl could have had any
> indication that slipping past a warning sign onto a rickety emergency
> vessel that can only be operated by a highly-trained emergency worker
> to cross the sterile reaches of space in a desparate mission to deliver
> vital medicine to a plague-ravaged wild planet might be even a tiny bit
> more risky than parking 11 minutes in a 10 minute loading zone.

No, I'm assuming that she had no way of knowing how rickety the
emergency vessel was or how tight the fuel constraints were. Those are
the things that killed her. She was already on a spaceship operated by
a highly trained crew crossing the barren reaches of space in a
spaceship using incomprehensible warp technology between semi-wild
barely colonised planets on a deadline tighter than a duck's arse, and
that wasn't killing her.


> I am assuming that being hit by a tornado is bad luck.

That depends on where you are. There are some places, even on this
planet, where you know that there is a good chance that a building will
be hit be a tornado. On this planet, people try to take precautions to
deal with that. If the colony planet is particularly windy, or the
colony is in an area prone to tornados, then getting hit by a tornado
could be the kind of bad luck that you usually get once a year.

> If I change my assumptions, will you change yours?

I'll try repeating this one last time. I'm not assuming anything about
the planet. Maybe it was bad luck, maybe it was something that the
colonists should have anticipated. I DON'T KNOW. Which means I don't
know if it was bad planning or not. Why are you assuming it was
entirely down to bad luck, and had nothing to do with bad planning.

Ray

.

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