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Comment by slushh | Hacker News Reader

>it could be carried out by classification societies

So everything already worked as intended. The tourists didn't bother to check the classification or if they did, were willing to dive anyways.

The 737 MAX shows that government involvement is not enough. Likewise doping shows that a legal framework is not enough to prevent advanced cheating.

>Personally, I think it ought to be illegal to misrepresent your service’s safety. I seriously doubt the passengers onboard were aware of OceanGate’s whistleblower lawsuit

Wouldn't it be better to establish a verification culture? There are always businesses that lie. The law only works retroactively while the tourists would be alive if they had checked.

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> The tourists didn't bother to check the classification or if they did, were willing to dive anyways.

My comment was suggesting that the U.S. government require that a business has a certification from an approved classification society in order to conduct a submersible tourism business. This does not seem to be the law currently since OceanGate is allowed to operate without any.

> The 737 MAX shows that government involvement is not enough.

No regulations will prevent all accidents, but I would say the rarity of fatal air accidents in the U.S. in recent decades is partly due to the high standards enforced by the FAA.

> Wouldn't it be better to establish a verification culture?

That sounds good too. That doesn’t contradict that regulations should also be in place so these conventions are required.

> The law only works retroactively while the tourists would be alive if they had checked.

Laws and regulations definitely do not only work retroactively. The FAA can ground unsafe planes, food inspectors can shutdown production before rotten food is shipped out, health inspectors can shutdown a restaurant.

Laws can’t protect these passengers, but they should be made to protect all future passengers.

>No regulations will prevent all accidents, but I would say the rarity of fatal air accidents in the U.S. in recent decades is partly due to the high standards enforced by the FAA.

Because the FAA has reporting requirements for any abnormal flight behavior which causes deviation. They literally prevent future accidents by analyzing past behavior.

And there might be more planes that would go down and more cheaters without any regulation. Just because you can't stop everything doesn't mean you shouldn't regulate anything

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