
Was History Fair to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Owners? - minikites
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/was-history-fair-triangle-waist-factory-owners-180971019/
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throwaway2048
Historical inflection points are often interesting. The outcry that leads to
widespread change is often triggered by things that are actually substantially
better than the status quoa, but the timing works out very badly for those
involved.

Reminds me these days of Google. Google isn't even operating in China in any
real capacity currently, and a lot of western companies are, but Google is
taking a huge amount of heat.

What seems to matter in these cases isn't the actual facts of the particular
instance, but the widespread issues they become a symbol of.

Consider the theory that revolutions often happen not when things are going
from bad to worse, but when things are getting better, but insufficiently fast
enough to satisfy the populace. The newly wealthy merchants of the French
monarchy system were one of the key drivers of the overthrow of the monarchy,
and newly wealthy landholders the key mover in the American revolution.

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boomboomsubban
In summary, the workers probably started the fire, other factories were worse,
they weren't found guilty of manslaughter, and the workers didn't even want a
safer factory. At most you can say that contemporary factory owners should be
judged similarly, not that we should blame workers.

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elliekelly
> Today few realize the role that American consumerism played in the tragedy.
> At the turn of the century a shopping revolution swept the nation as
> consumers flocked to downtown palace department stores, attracted by a wide
> selection of goods sold at inexpensive prices in luxurious environments. The
> women in the factory made ready-to-wear clothing, the shirtwaists that young
> women in offices and factories wanted to wear. Their labor, and low wages,
> made fashionable clothing affordable. Seeking efficiency, manufacturers
> applied mass production techniques in increasingly large garment shops.
> Entrepreneurs prospered, and even working-class people could afford to buy
> stylish clothing. When tragedy struck (as happens today), some blamed
> manufacturers, some pointed to workers and others criticized government. In
> a paradox of action, Americans pushed for both lower prices and safer,
> better-regulated factories, throughout the 1900s. Today attitudes have
> largely changed.

Have attitudes largely changed though? I feel like these sentences are pretty
applicable today, too.

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kevinventullo
Yes, Americans have stopped pushing for better-regulated factories because
they're largely all overseas.

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chrisdhoover
But the NFPA and the NEC are frequently updated. Modern buildings built to
code are much safer. The problem now is mostly inspection and compliance.
There should not have been field modifications of the structural steel at the
San Francisco transit center and the fuckwad “artists” in Oakland built their
ghostship deathtrap without a care for any lessons the previous 150 years of
tragedies had taught us.

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retSava
Fires really scare me. They are one of the things that rapidly can get out of
control, have devastating consequences, can happen in everyday conditions (as
opposite to eg flying).

Lots of highly flammable particles in the air is really a recipe for disaster,
see eg [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg7mLSG-
Yws](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg7mLSG-Yws) (sfw)

Locked or blocked exit doors is evil, see eg the Station fire, or the fire in
Gothenburg disco fire of 1998:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothenburg_discoth%C3%A8que_fi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothenburg_discoth%C3%A8que_fire)

A year back, I was eating breakfast with my 4-yo daughter, and we came up with
the question of "what happens if we put hard bread in the toaster?". Don't do
it. The fire started quickly, and the flames were surprisingly large (under a
cupboard too). Luckily, despite the small fire extinguisher not working at
all, I managed to put the fire out without any damage to anything but the
toaster.

Edit: Station nightclub fire (warning: scary, pretty graphic),
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bknYdprA9ug](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bknYdprA9ug)

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newmana
Yes.

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smadge
If I were being charitable, the article is saying "Yes, they were grossly and
intentionally negligent, but it was only because they were rationally
maximizing profit given the market and regulatory environment."

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hackeraccount
Regulation makes things safer. It destroys competition and raises prices.

Seems like it was a reasonable trade off in this case.

