Space Safety and "Taking Care For Each Other"

[Sean McPherson]

All,

I'm a safety third kind of person. I'm all about personal responsibility, and I'm not much on babysitting people. Equipment breaks, people sometimes get scratched up using a tool wrong, etc. I'm a bit of a realist about people learning in a variety of ways.

However, my belief in safety and personal responsibility comes with some rather larger-scale items of note. Given I've just lost some friends to the Oakland Ghost Ship, it seems a good time to bring up a generic conversation about personal vs shared responsibility and the scope of personal vs shared safety. That's why I titled it "taking care *for* each other" and not *of* each other.

Things I'll never be ambivalent about are larger issues that have the possibility of causing death or harm to people not involved in an activity as a responsible party. If you want to learn how to use a tool, and fail to read the manual, and break your one-of-a-kind vintage doohickey, my sympathy level will be low. Same for if you come out of it wearing a bandaid or missing an eyebrow.

When it comes to the safety of the space as a whole and our neighbors and even neighboring structures, we need to remember that we must remain responsible and vigilant. When it comes to visitors to the space or neighbors, they can't be considered to have consented to some higher degree of lack of safety (and again, I don't mean the typical waiver level "I got cut while using a screwdriver"). Things like basic fire safety, egress paths and access to doors aren't things we can safely, legally, or ethically ignore.

The best part of this email is, there's no "to do" I'm asking about. It's just a reminder. I'm thrilled with how often I see people going the extra mile to be sure that doors, halls, and other paths are clear. I'm proud of the fact that while we have people who do amazingly cool things that often have some component of risk to them, in general we're intelligent about it (by doing things in the right space or outside, with the right number of volunteers to stand fire watch, or when the weather is conducive to it).

So, I just want to say thank you, and please don't get complacent about it. I've just lost a few friends who almost certainly thought their space was safe, their plans for safety were sufficient, and that everyone involved was consenting to the same degree of risk. Please remember to check the fire extinguishers regularly, make sure the (3) doors and paths to them are clear, and don't hesitate to mention (and volunteer while you're at it) an extra degree of overwatch if someone is perhaps creating too high an element of risk for the structure or the other inhabitants or the neighbors.

There are dozens of families in Oakland and around the world tonight that I'm sure are wishing someone had done a few of those things on behalf of those they lost.

Thanks,

Sean McPherson