https://www.conexpoconagg.com/news/improving-jobsite-product...
>How do workers benefit from WakeCap?
>Workers’ location and activity is identified within the boundaries of a project for the greater good of all involved within the project and to ensure every worker is safe especially when it comes to fall from height detection, ambient temperature extremes, and confined space crowd control, and more. We found that workers responded positively to the technology.
>Do you have proof that it works?
>WakeCap connected 15+ job sites with 2000+ workers per project...Predominately mega construction projects in Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
"This won't stop you feeling pain, but it will stop you caring about it.".
[1] https://qstp.org.qa/arab-techpreneur-sets-sights-transformin...
You're assuming that this individual hasn't already done something to atone (which goes against HN's rule to assume best intentions). That, coupled with a tone that comes off as though you know better than this person, basically round out the definition of "condescending".
It's kinda weird to expect people not to make mistakes such as this if nobody tells them it's wrong. And it's normal for people to tell other people they do bad stuff if they do.
And you have four different peers who have responded to you suggesting that you are being condescending. Take a step back and ask why - intention and tone are two different things, and if you get the latter wrong then we will misunderstand the former.
>It's kinda weird to expect people not to make mistakes such as this if nobody tells them it's wrong. And it's normal for people to tell other people they do bad stuff if they do.
Just let 'em be. You're not a hero. They admitted what they did, and why they know it's wrong. You're not doing anything other than going, "Yep, you sure did fuck up."
Good point, OK.
Hardly, since I just agreed with what they said. I suggested what IMHO is a good way to make up for it. Nothing else.
> that you have to tell them
Sure, I have to. I think everyone should say something in cases like this.
Is there somehow a difference in impact depending on who does this? Maybe if you chipped in, the Qatar slave workers would be even better off. Or is this just about guilt-tripping strangers for their past? :-)
This thread is such a great opportunity for learning and curiosity and yet you choose to see it only as an opportunity for moral grandstanding, possibly scaring away other people with interesting stories to tell. Why are you on this website?
It's also not like it's common knowledge. Myself I only learned about it couple years ago, here on HN, because of some comment threads that segued into discussions about Qatar construction projects.
Point being, without knowing anything about OP, including where are they from, you can't assume they had a chance of knowing this before taking the job, or even learning about it on the job. The world is awash with news stories about everything - often you learn about a huge tragedy only when you chance on a story about it.
Here's several articles from 2017, for example.
That's around the time I learned about it. Notably, this is couple years after the poster worked on their project.
If this is real you should get in touch with investigative journalists, e.g. ProPublica.
("Get in touch with investigative journalists" probably applies to a bunch of the people posting in this thread.)
If the company that makes the helmet is based in a country with good government, maybe a reasonable regulation would be to score workers on productivity, but place limitations on the scoring somehow. E.g. the helmet stops showing the worker's location when they've spent too much time in the heat. Or the helmet estimates the fraction of the workday that the worker spent offsite, but all workers who spend 20% or less of their time offsite are given a score of 20%, so the employer can't force the worker to spend more than 80% of their time onsite. I don't think productivity scoring has to be dystopian in principle; generally speaking it seems reasonable to pay people according to how productive they are.
You could also argue for regulating the helmet out of existence, but I assume in that case it would just be built somewhere else with lax regulations. So the trick is to put in regulation that creates a humane experience for workers, but not so much that Qatar is incentivized to contract the development of a new, more draconian helmet in a different locale. I don't think this should be too hard, because creating a humane experience for workers should also help productivity to a degree.
There's also a security dimension here -- you don't want abusive employers to be able to circumvent these limitations. So you could make it so the helmet only runs code which has been signed with the company's private key, or have a lot of the functionality server-side.
"drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not,"
My company built the smart helmet used to track Qatar’s army of abused workers. The claim is GPS and accelerometer where used to track if a worker stopped moving or fell due to an accident; the geo fencing was supposedly for tracking if they had enough workers in an area for the job.
The reality is the helmets where/are used as mass surveillance tech to ensure workers are continuously active and never leave their assigned areas for petty things like going to the bathroom or finding shade to prevent heat stroke.