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Comment by amluto | Hacker News Reader

I would expect that a shop that specializes in cutting countertops would have equipment to cut them with essentially no dust exposure. Water jets come to mind (and people even sell waterjet tools specifically designed for cutting countertops), but a CNC mill with good dust collection ought to be able to do the job pretty well, too.

So why is there so much dust exposure to begin with? Here's an article showing someone attacking a countertop with an angle grinder without dust collection at all:

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2023/07/425871/deadly-dust-enginee...

Even a basic dust collector attached to that angle grinder (these are cheap!) should make a pretty big difference.

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Is there any trade where people actually use appropriate safety precautions? Our culture seems to be actively anti safety.

It's horrible. Any attempt to protect yourself is met with shame, even if it's something as simple as not wanting to eat a sugary snack someone offers, or wearing earplugs in a dangerously loud bar, or wanting to go get a hand truck instead of lifting a piece of furniture.

No one can force you to feel shame about those things. That's entirely on you.

That's not how human social interaction works though. Monkey see, monkey do. Some more than others. It is a psychological condition if you truly are immune to peer pressure.

Fortunately we can go beyond monkey.

But not that much, and not everyone the same amount.

With training, yes, but not everyone is lucky enough to learn before they have a permanent injury or an addiction, or they are broke and homelessness and have a criminal record.

Some of these dangers we actively encourage, like high school sports, where 17yos will list off their fairly major injuries, this is considered normal, and the only realistic way to prevent those injuries would be to quit, because playing in a way that avoids injury is not what's expected.

> It is a psychological condition if you truly are immune to peer pressure.

By that criteria, I must be a psychopath. Integrity is not a psychological condition. Lack of it is.

Yours is the logic that leads to people "just following orders." Nazi see, Nazi do!

In this case, it's not a culture of avoiding PPE. That's propaganda from shitty contracting firms trying to save a few bucks by not providing PPE in the first place. The illegal laborers they hire to do the work aren't ever in a position to complain.

Nazi Germany did happen, didnt it?

You are making it into a value judgement. That can only cloud observation of our species.

A better question would be: how are individuals reinforced in overcoming our limitations?

I think you may be missing the point, which is that it's strange that so many people make fun of careful safety.

It's not a stretch to go from making fun of someone for using workplace safety equipment to making fun of them for wearing a seatbelt. If I had to work with these people I'd ridicule them right back and take no shit.

And yes, of course it's strange. There are a lot of things other things that are extremely strange about our society: for example, the expectation that everyone drive an individual car to be able to get anywhere, the ubiquitous use of non-biodegradable plastic packaging, the idea that housing is a commodity whose investment returns take precedence over the basic human need for shelter.

If you go against these things you will look strange in comparison to others, but it is nonetheless the right thing to do.

Peer pressure exists to be ignored. If you give in you've lost so just don't give in.

The purpose of Capitalism is to extract as much profit as possible. If we attended to "worker safety" (and extend it from "putting railings around the meat grinders" to "setting office hours that don't slowly give seated workers metabolic disorders"), Capital extraction would halt! Think of the shareholders!

In your kneejerk attempt to sneak in a zinger about how bad capitalism is, you failed to realize in examples given, mitigation tools are either provided by the employer (eg. hand truck ) and/or costs a trivial amount (eg. earplugs, which cost like 10 cents each).

> Is there any trade where people actually use appropriate safety precautions?

Have you actually worked in construction or the trades? When I look at the construction/trade workers around me in Canada, the US, and the EU, hardhats, safety glasses, safety shoes, and (where applicable) fall arrest harnesses are all commonly used and used correctly. I've also done construction and trade/engineering-related work myself 10+ years ago, and using all the relevant safety equipment was mandatory and nearly 100% enforced. It didn't take much effort from management to get to close to 100% usage either, as people I worked with generally accepted that the safety measures were worthwhile.

Re: the specific issue mentioned in this article, I've been around a bunch of pottery studios in the past, and every single one of them strictly enforced measures to avoid silicosis. (namely, almost all operations were done with dustless wet clay, and at the end of the day all traces of clay were cleaned up before they could dry, essentially every single time)

Residential or commercial?

I've worked around the trades(Stuff like setting up control systems on a construction site, and doing light woodworking to fix all the stuff I had to break just to flash some firmware on some badly designed inaccessible device).

The real pros use safety equipment, and it's great, I actually enjoy working with them more than other coders, but some of the craigslist handymen seem to think a crack pipe is respiratory protection.... and there's tons of them even in places I'd expect to be all really good pros....

This makes too much sense. Especially using water spray to collect most of the dust at the moment its created and before it diffuses into the air, and perhaps ambient mist to collect some of any remainder.

Have you ever watched an average landscaper break or cut concrete? It’s an unbelievable mess.

I have hundreds of hours on a Stihl TS-420 cutting concrete and plastic pipe for a water and sewer company.

The saw even comes with an attachment for a waterline, but the company never provided a water source.

And it wasn't because it was a small company or that they had money issues, they just didn't give a shit.

Some days the foreman wouldn't even provide us potable drinking water.

I can't even express the feeling of dejected irony in realizing that a company that that installs water infrastructure can't provide drinking water to the people doing the installation.

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