Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

but-for analysis suggests that the drunk driving is the root cause.

"but why where they drinking and driving!?" could range from carelessness to chronic mental health issues and addition. too many to pin down, and not direct causes; indirect at best.

drunk driving killed them



Not really. “But why” can be asked at any point in the chain (“but why did the blood loss occur?”), so it’s not a useful differentiator.

The problem is that there’re seemingly no ready clear-cut one-size-fits-all solutions with root causes, while there are some we can use to alleviate the downstream mechanisms of harm (e.g., drunk driving bans, chemotherapy), so we prefer to address those instead. When all you have is a hammer and all that. It doesn’t show that such root causes can’t be helped, only that the topic is perhaps not being investigated as actively (it doesn’t lend itself to the traditional approaches used in natural sciences, and rather than treat it as a difficult challenge it’s easier to label it as too vague, not scientific enough, or beyond an arbitrary physicality line).




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: