[gernb]

And further there are trade offs. I don't know the trade offs of bridge building is but the example i've heard in the past is, it's possible we could make it so no one ever dies in a plane crash. To do that with today's tech might make flights cost 2x, 3x, 4x more. Flights cost more = more people choose to drive (say SF to LA or LA to Vegas or DC to NYC). More people drive = more deaths.

That isn't to say you shouldn't make things safer but you have to take into account is your change a net positive over all. I have no idea what the trade off is for bridges. The bridge arguably increase commerce which means its completion created jobs. Poverty is a top killer of people so more jobs = less death.

That said, one thing I'm happy to see on construction sites, at least for buildings, they put up fences on every floor so it's harder to fall out. My guess is that really only became possible when they could create the fences out of plastic.

[SamoyedFurFluff]

I think plane crashes are not a good example of your point. Every time a crash happens, a massive post Mortem tends to occur to determine what needs to be done such that that specific failure mode will never happen again. Pilots have checklists on checklists on checklists that they must tick off during each procedure of the flight, with each point written in the blood of previous crashes. There isn’t discussion generally as to whether or not adding new checklists, the two pilot system, or other safety improvements as a result of this would make flights more expensive: hell, an entire new model of plane was taken completely out of the skies during a recent investigation as to a fucked up sensor.

[thrown_22]

Plane crashes might have improved but plane flights have not. I'm old enough to remember flying in the 90s. I'd be willing to play Russian roulette if I could show up 15 minutes before an international flight today and still make it on the plane.

[TheOtherHobbes]

You could also make commuter driving (near) zero-death now. It would be a huge one-off payment for a national - possibly international - navigation and power grid. But once built it would be a huge cost saver, because automated traffic flows could be optimised across the entire system.

Although in fact remote work would be even better, for those jobs that support it.

Meanwhile jobs have become poverty traps, so they're not enough on their own to avoid poverty and death.

Ultimately it's not about building things or the cost of highly visible prestige projects. It's about systemic rather than fragmented thinking. Capitalism tends to the latter, because an airy wave of the invisible hand is supposed to somehow optimise everything.

This is magical fantasy. If you want intelligent culture-wide systems you have to get your best people to design and build them. And they have to consider long-term systemic outcomes as much as short-term goals and projects.

This culture is very, very bad at that. But it's also unrealistically convinced it's very good at it.

[throwaway0a5e]

>That isn't to say you shouldn't make things safer but you have to take into account is your change a net positive over all.

This is hard to do in a world where people have fundamentally incompatible belief systems.