Hacker News Reader

I commented about this on the linked site and it was deleted.

Adding a table strikes me distinctly as ignoring the root of the problem, which probably has more to do with safety standards and training. There has to be a more robust way to prevent accidents than luring people away from them.

So, ironically, this seems to be an example of asking too many questions, and we're not even at 5 yet.

View on HN

Actually, "luring" people away from accidents is often a better way than strict training. "Don't jay-walk across the freeway" will only work when a viable (and safe) crossing is close by. Otherwise your users will simply ignore your training to make their lives easier.

True, and I'm all for that kind of thinking in addition to common sense precautions. Maybe that was the case and there were huge signs and training manuals and off buttons all over the place but coderr's scenario sounds more likely.

My larger point is that failure analysis is complicated and full of red herrings. Simplifying it to "five whys" (or four, or six) only creates false security.

The "5 whys" don't need to be exactly 5; it's just the name for the process of getting to the root cause of a problem.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com