[GDC7]

This right here.

Back when the first ships failed causing the death of all the occupants , human lives were just not worth much , so humans kept building ships.

And also mass media wasn't there yet, so there could be no way to massively distribute content of a ship sinking and all the bodies floating around.

Same thing with planes, had we discovered flight in the Middle Ages we would have loaded 100+ people in wooden planes as fast as humanely possible because of the enthusiasm for the new technology would have vastly surpassed the fear of being harmed by it.