Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomhoward | Hacker News Reader

This kind of concern-trolling on threads like this gets really tiresome.

Anyone in such a role where they will be fitting ventilators to people (i.e., highly educated, experienced and employed in a critical care role) will understand that this is outside of standard practice and that extra caution will need to be taken and considerations made for the different functionality and behaviour of the machine.

Can't we just appreciate the spirit of inventiveness in a crisis, without having to spoil it by fretting about issues that any grown adult working with this stuff will be fully capable of considering?

View on HN

I definitely do. One of the main differences is this specifically is not mass-marketed, and I agree that anybody would would have the capability of doing this should already have the knowledge to not fuck it up. I'm just saying its a false equivalency between the two

This post is a perfect distillation of why there should be more history and other humanities subjects in traditionally STEM educations.

>Can't we just appreciate the spirit of inventiveness in a crisis, without having to spoil it by fretting about issues that any grown adult working with this stuff will be fully capable of considering?

Can't we just appreciate the inventiveness of using radium to light up watch dials? Or the inventiveness of the first friction matches?

Someone who is educated or trained doesn't necessarily make a dangerous invention a net-positive.

Please don't make patronising assumptions: my education and topics of interest are far more focused on humanities than STEM.

The examples you cite are not at all apt comparisons, as the risks and mitigation techniques are well known to the highly experienced adults using the equipment, as has been reported elsewhere.

This is a crisis like no other and it is bringing out incredible inventiveness and creativity in the determination to save lives.

That's what should be celebrated.

Nobody is saying due caution should be disregarded.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com