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Not quite. The Broken Window Fallacy hinges on the fact that the son breaks the window for a reason that doesn't further any other economic cause. That is, he d
by intopieces 10y ago
Not quite. The Broken Window Fallacy hinges on the fact that the son breaks the window for a reason that doesn't further any other economic cause. That is, he didn't break the window for research, so nothing new was gained from it. Resources were merely shifted from the shopkeeper to the glazier.
When it comes to innovation, however, failure is often the impetus to more efficient design. Not only was that $200m shifted from Musk/Investors to SpaceX, et al, but it also went to informing the process and improvements for the entire project, and future projects by other companies.
We wish we could learn these things more cheaply, sure. But that doesn't mean the world or company would have been better off in the long run had the incident not occurred -- it's too soon to tell, and we might never know.
- tamana 10y agoYou can't say that all mistakes are worthwhile just because they reach us that we shouldn't make those mistakes... We already knew that. That wasn't research, it was a prelaunch test, and it failed.
- incongruity 10y agoThat's not what we're learning. We're learning how not to make those mistakes. That yields: 1) Lower risk launches in the future through better process and better design 2) Possibly cheaper/better hardware redesigned due to the issues uncovered today. Yes, it is probably lower ROI than that payload getting into space, but it does mean it's not a total loss and not simply a broken window fallacy. It's more akin to if the window maker also tried to learn/test harder to break windows with each one she installed. Then, each broken window would be an experimental outcome instead of just a lost window.
- kiba 10y agoThere's no way to get around making mistakes no matter how careful you are. It's inevitable for non omniscient beings.