Italian Court Sentences Seismologists to Jail

[hey]

From reddit:



/thread

lol. It's ok, i believe everything i read on reddit too, without even considering the possibility that nothing said even makes a tiny bit of sense.

[Orden]

Italy is Middle East tier.

Except with more bunga-bunga parties

[Callisto]

I thought they were convicted of manslaughter. What's all this "pocketing money" talk?

They mean their salary.

[warc]

Similar event happened in the 80s in California. USGS made a vague prediction about an earthquake near Mammoth mountain. Event never happened and the city agencies sued the USGS for losses in property value. USGS basically said ok well fuck you then, and has since stopped giving sanctioned predictions on volcanic/seismic events.

Also, Italy is a shithole. It's only a first world country by proxy.

[Mazmaz]

They mean their salary.

Ok, but the charge is manslaughter right? It's not "oh you're getting 6 years cause you stole some money", it's "oh you're getting 6 years for killing people".
Which makes this ridiculous.

[Salodin]

If the deaths are by negligence from them pocketing salaries for no real effort made to do their job, then yes, it could be labeled manslaughter.

[Necronus]

Ok, but the charge is manslaughter right? It's not "oh you're getting 6 years cause you stole some money", it's "oh you're getting 6 years for killing people".
Which makes this ridiculous.

They're equating it to a construction site forman who makes no effort to make his site safe and then someone dies ... all while he got paid. He's obviously neglegent and responsible. They're effictively taking this legitimate statement, which could be described as a person who simply pocketed some money (salary) and then attempted to not do his job:

"He didn't do his job and follow safety regulations and someone died ... he's neglegent and resposible the death of the man he didn't keep safe"

And transmuting it to this:

"They didn't do their job and warn us and people died ... so they're neglegent and responsible for the deaths of everyone they didn't make safe"

[Mazmaz]

I see. I didn't know you could actually get jailed by being shitty at your job. Good thing I didn't follow through with that engineering degree!

[warc]

Yeah but in the US professional negligence needs expert testimony from a similar professional in the same field. A regular juror or layman cannot judge professional negligence. Doctors/engineers/lawyers can lose licensure or face jail time for severe negligence but fire fighters and paramedics have immunity (barring a case of severe gross negligence). Seismologists that are working to predict and warn communities about possible disasters, along with other preventative committees and organizations should receive the same type of immunity. Unless there was a breach of conduct by the seismologists in Italy, they should in no way be liable for damages. I'd like to think that professionals are protected to some extent, however I'm not that naive.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Looks like no one is going into seismology in Italy ever again. Shit, I know if I were in that field and lived there I'd find a way out asap.

[Byrthnoth]

I see. I didn't know you could actually get jailed by being shitty at your job. Good thing I didn't follow through with that engineering degree!

It's not really for being shitty at their job, considering the odds of a big quake were still low. There's a cluster of quakes. You know that after a cluster of small quakes there's a 3% chance of a big quake. Do you let people go back to their houses or not? How long do you displace a city?

Eagle eye hindsight is great, but there was a substantial cost associated with not approving the return to the city and the odds were too low to justify it. Also, if the second quoted reddit poster is to believed the decision wasn't even up to them.