Swift wrote:It really comes across, at least to me, as "this is wrong and unjust and what are YOU FOLKS doing about it. You are not stepping up on this, you priviledged Americans". Well, what are you doing about? I've been working on social issues that are important to me for almost 40 years. I donated my time and money to these things, and still do (as recently as last Sunday). I feel insulted to be told I am priviledged and am not doing enough.
I'm probably taking this entirely too personally, but that's how I feel. I'm sorry, but I'm out of here...
Pretty sure TSC and GJ aren't saying that.
Likewise I'm pretty sure they are reading into this far more and badly than they should be.
There isn't some conspiracy to treat Americans over Africans.
There isn't some block here. There is no reason not to release something if it's proven effective and can be made in quantity.
I imagine anyone that's been in any form of industry where a disaster happens (disaster can be a critical IT server down for example) and everyone is running around like crazy can appreciate what is going on here. The people that have the skill are busting their arses to get it resolved, the people above them are putting pressure on them because the people they answer to are putting pressure on them and so on. Ultimately the decision is made after everyone is near worn out and the people that are the key in resolving the issue are put in a situation no one wants to be in. They know they aren't ready and they have to try anyway.
The straw that broke the camels back might just have been that one of their own was dying. It would probably do it for me, especially if I knew the person or knew of them.
I don't know if GJ or TSC have been in super high stress situations where everyone is relying on you to resolve the problem. I have. That was the core of my job for decades, troubleshooter. No matter what industry I was working in, things were always exactly as I described above. When I contracted for Kodak, the systems went down and I was called in. I had a car accident, writing off the car while on my way there. Not my fault, no one injured but I couldn't sit there and try to comfort the woman who pulled out in front of me that saw her life flash before her eyes. I had a job to do, one that was my lively hood and it was costing the company $10,000 per hour till it was fixed. A process chemical spewing into the waste area requiring not only a clean up which was costly but remaking the chemical which was also costly and time consuming. Get to the job or lose your job. Eyes on the job. Everyone's eyes on you and everyone pressuring you to do something now when you know you aren't ready and a wrong choice could spell irreversible disaster. Seems easy, I was even told how easy it was, shut the valve...yeah, you can, if you want an explosion. Rule 1: don't fuck with chemical processes you don't know about.
Same thing at Federation Square. They had the Prime Minister of Australia coming in along with an entourage of high fliers and diplomats and they couldn't seal the movable wall making it not possible to continue with the function but also a huge security risk. I was called in and told they would fly me in, they don't care. Just fix the fucking thing now. Again, everyone watching and putting pressure on me and me in my motorcycle race suit because that was the only way to get there and I couldn't even get time to change. If I screwed up there was a panel over 8 meters tall weighing about a ton that would fall in a public area which naturally would have put an end to everything.
It's nothing like what these guys have to deal with, but very similar at the same time. You want to take the right precautions and you want to follow a set procedure because when you're so under the pump and tired you make mistakes when you deviate from the SOP you are used to and that was developed to ensure safety for yourself and others. To deviate is risky. Then you have to weigh risk vs the possible outcome as the data comes in. At some point your mind says its' time to take a calculated risk, whereas just moments before it was not.
I imagine anyone in the military knows how this works. You follow SOP and have that SOP drummed in so you can do it half conscious with your leg blown off. Deviating from it is a last resort and requires a hell of a lot of pressure from everywhere as well as extreme circumstances.
Getting shit for finally deviating is just insulting and I think not only unfair but very ignorant of what is happening behind the scenes.
And yes, I have got shit for that reason.
Dumb responses like, "if it was that simple, why did it take you that long to do it?"
Well fuckhead, if I did it before I knew that was the issue, you would have a multi-million dollar pile of junk now that you'd happily blame me for, but glad to know you'd just try random things in the hope you might fix something. I'll call you next time I have to work in a high voltage panel so you can poke around it. Dumass.
No need to ask if I have had conversations like that. You know I have.
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif)
Anyway, that's what I see happening behind the scenes. Not some grand scheme to treat Americans and not others.