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Is there anything in this section (other than time-period specific technology) that would have been out of place in the US 100 or 200 years ago? For example, the behavior of early Mormons makes it seem like skepticism and common sense literally hadn't been invented yet:
One of the key witnesses is described as:
Among other fantastic claims. There's a lot of crazy stuff in that link. And this wasn't the Borderers in Appalachia--Joseph Smith's ancestors were definitely Puritan and Mormonism began in upstate New York.
Safety is expensive. Car seats, climbing harnesses, etc. If something has to be done, and you're poor, then you'll just have to do it in the unsafe way. How many Darwin Awards went to hillbillies using guns for things they shouldn't have?
Overall I don't see a good reason to believe that these are problems inherent to a particular ethnicity of people rather than contingent on education, wealth, and possibly culture.
It's that, but it's not just that, it's also attitude. I've seen Mexicans (in Mexico) arc welding without eye protection when the eye protection was right there. Personally I think we could use a little more of that attitude in the US, but maybe not that much; vision is important.
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I think it’s also a part of the de masculinization of modern American and European culture in which all risk of any sort are horrific and to be avoided even at the cost of actually living.
I'm all for facing certain risks head-on and accepting that some amount of risk is unavoidable in a life worth living. I don't know what's to be gained from neglecting even basic safety regardless of context. At least Pasha's post from today is about taking risks to have fun, explore, and learn things. Risking disability or death when it's easily avoidable for misplaced machismo is the opposite of masculine, in my opinion. "Duty is heavier than a mountain. Death is lighter than a feather." Your duty as a traditional man is to take care of your family. Can't do that if you're crippled or dead. Put aside your ego and do the boring but important things; that's actually the hard part.
Most of the complaints about risk come from people who don't really understand the risks though -- I will do things at heights which make onlookers shit their pants, mostly just so that they will shit their pants. Also for the lulz; it's fun, and work is supposed to be fun! But these things are less dangerous than the drive to work, for me.
I've also seen people do stuff that makes me shit my pants at work, but they don't have a deathwish -- they figured out a trick that makes people shit their pants, and can do it safely. Like trapeze artists.
(Nybbler's welder was probably using a torch -- it's actually not that hard on the eyes, the googles are quite bright compared to arc helmets, and are mostly there in case of spatter)
No, an arc. I know the difference.
Huh -- I've caught the odd flash, and it's pretty blinding even in the short term.
Was he like, doing short tacks while looking the other way? I've seen that before, but unless he was already blind actually looking at the weld sounds rough. (I don't think you'd be able to see anything anyways?)
Yeah, pretty much. Looking up, more like. He was doing repairs on some metal stairs parallel to the ones I was using (in the US of course both sets would be closed off, or they'd have built some sort of temporary barrier between the repair area and the open stairs), and I noticed because the flash was pretty bright even from where I was. There was a visor right next to him, but I guess he thought it was too hot or maybe it was easier to see where to start without it.
This one actually makes kind of sense from an efficiency perspective if you don't have an auto-darkening helmet -- the classical approach is to line up your stinger with the helmet up, then kind of shake your head side to side until it drops. This is a PITA if you are doing a lot of small discontinuous welds, and once you've done a few you don't really need to see what's going on with the weld pool to do an OK job. Auto-body workers do a lot of this when welding panels (to keep the head spread out and not warp them); I think I've seen a torch-head designed s.t. it's just the right distance from the panel if you press the nose of it up against the work that it makes a nice tack weld but hides the arc.
tl;dr -- that's pretty safe by Mexico standards; lots of people in the US will do it to if OH&S is looking the other way. (although maybe not so much anymore with auto-helmets being pretty cheap)
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A lot of this safety stuff is genuinely good and useful and not using it is idiotic, like the example nybbler gave above you.
It doesn’t make you a ‘real man’ to unnecessarily risk life and limb when there’s a trivial mitigation. It makes you reckless and stupid.
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