Hacker News Reader

Comment by bleepblorp | Hacker News Reader

There are very, very few countries that wouldn't cough up a zero-accountability half-assed response to a similar major incident. Corruption, protecting decision-makers from accountability, and taking half-measures are, sadly, inherent to the human condition.

Just look at how badly most of the world has handled COVID-19.

View on HN

So the sad thing is, there are international resources available to help exactly in these kinds of scenarios.

Look at the International Atomic Energy Agency's report of the incident in Georgia(the country) where lumberjacks found an abandoned radioactive source in a forest - Georgia alone would have never had the resources to deal with it, but because they followed the international protocol the entire operation was done under supervision, cleaned up properly and affected people given top-class help in foreign hospitals:

https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81...

My point is - all that the Mexican government had to do was to swallow some pride and work with an agency like IAEA to clean it up properly.

It’s terrifying how not-together our general human act is, in most places on Earth. Even large, well-funded governments resort to coverups and lies in the face of disasters, even ones that are somewhat to be expected (in general, if not specific timing).

It’s what depressed me most about COVID. Every large country has engaged in various forms of cooking its books related to deaths or hospitalizations, or saving face, with almost no exceptions. China, US, Russia, Japan, Brazil - all of them massaging the counting (and/or restricting publication) so that accurate information is impossible to obtain.

What’s wrong with simply publishing the facts, straight, and telling people how it is? Are governments and those within them so terrified of the weaponization of narrative that the best game-theoretic optimal choice is to lie by default?

Is this really the best we can do?

politicians are usually held responsible for stuff that goes on during their term, whether or not they could have done anything about it or even if it's a consequence of something the previous administration did. these kinds of nuances don't really come across to the voters, so it's much easier to just downplay everything bad that happens on your watch.

While what you otherwise say is true, I think it is an error to attribute it to the "human condition". There is no proof that humans will inevitably act this way under all circumstances. But, by claiming it to be inevitable, you ensure that you will make no effort for it to be any other way.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com