(Note that I haven’t said anything about nuclear, because I think managing nuclear power plants is actually just an easy problem. That is, I think nearly all the safety strategies surrounding nuclear power are symbolic, unnecessary, and motivated by unfounded paranoia.)
I think managing a nuclear power plant is relatively easy… but, like, I’d expect managing a regular ol’ power plant (or, many other industries) to be pretty easy, and my impression is that random screwups still manage to happen. So it still seems notable to me if nuclear plants avoid the same degree of incidents that other random utility companies have.
I agree many of the safety strategies surrounding nuclear power are symbolic. But I’ve recently updated away from “yay nuclear power” because while it seems to me the current generation of stuff is just pretty safe and is being sort of unreasonably strangled by regulation… I dunno that I actually expect civilizational competence to continue having it be safe, given how I’ve seen the rest of civilizational competence playing otu. (I’m not very informed here though)
I think managing a nuclear power plant is relatively easy… but, like, I’d expect managing a regular ol’ power plant (or, many other industries) to be pretty easy, and my impression is that random screwups still manage to happen. So it still seems notable to me if nuclear plants avoid the same degree of incidents that other random utility companies have.
I agree many of the safety strategies surrounding nuclear power are symbolic. But I’ve recently updated away from “yay nuclear power” because while it seems to me the current generation of stuff is just pretty safe and is being sort of unreasonably strangled by regulation… I dunno that I actually expect civilizational competence to continue having it be safe, given how I’ve seen the rest of civilizational competence playing otu. (I’m not very informed here though)