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Comment by PaulHoule | Hacker News Reader

Escalators have bad failure modes too. An escalator can function as stairs because it has a set of brakes. If those brakes fail, gravity will send everyone on the belt into a high speed collision with the floor.

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Why does there always have to be one bikeshedder in every HN thread who reads too much into another's analogy and comments about how it's flawed/wrong/inaccurate, thereby completely missing the analogy's point?

Being pedantic can have it's merits but yes, it can get old.

Just wanted to thank you for adding the term "bikeshedder" to my vocabulary.

Because those people haven't internalized the idea of an analogy. An analogy is necessarily an imperfect abstraction, and some people think finding out those imperfections means you somehow found a flaw somewhere. Their brain (not singling out our friend here, just people in general) goes towards the exceptions in a model, because its far easier to find superficial flaws than it is to realize deeper meaning.

This is a wonderful observation. It is a lesson that I took far too long to learn as a young and somewhat insecure programmer, thereby becoming entangled in many unproductive arguments.

Perhaps not this case, but analogies when used as persuasion devices, can get quite dangerous. It's important to realize when they are false, or misleading, or overly reductionist, in order not to fall for them.

I certainly fell for a few false ones in the past. Sometimes only deeper meaning is that someone's trying to manipulate you.

I also was just thinking about those poor woman who got killed in a Chinese escalator accident a few years ago, totally missing the analogy's point.

But that's just a problem with analogies, they trigger different ideas in different people's heads.

The same is true of elevators, though, is it not? If we're postulating motor failure and brake failure, I'd still rather take my chances with a broken escalator.

There has to be way to much friction in the mechanics for that to happen. No?

Mitch. One of the greats. Uncopyable.

Nope - Elevator failure in Hong Kong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADb57ysvCbU

Do escalators not come with a ratcheting mechanism to prevent exactly that from happening? Seems to me like a serious design error if not..

I guess they were designed to run in both directions, meaning you can't mechanically lock the "down" direction.

I mean, it's probably a Chinese escalator. We didn't get the term "Shenzhen Quality" out of thin air.

That seems a bit of a misnomer when everything is made in Shenzen.

Funny, it seems increasingly apt to me.

Most escalators used outside of China are not made in Shenzhen.

/s/Elevator/Escalator/

Just sayin', if I were building an escalator I would definitely use a wormdrive (or similar) gearbox, which physically cannot be backdriven.

I'll bite. The analogy has a failing elevator becoming a jail. That sounds like motor but not brake failure, i.e. the elevator getting stuck. If both motors and brakes failed, an elevator becomes a coffin not a jail.

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