4 ms·

US has become too risk averse, so every accident leads to yet another regulation. There was a discussion on HN last year, which discussed how death rates on pub

US has become too risk averse, so every accident leads to yet another regulation. There was a discussion on HN last year, which discussed how death rates on public construction projects have fallen to zero (unfortunately can't find a link to that). On the one hand, thats a great news and I certainly don't want to be the person to lose my life due to lax regulations. But on the other hand, we should also consider the lost opportunity due to progress not made either due to regulatory obstacles (like biomedical research for cancer cure discussed here) or insufficient public funds (due to overspending on public works to minimize fatalities). Ultimately, the question boils down to how much dollar value we as a society want to put on human life. A very high value will have obvious apparent benefits but lots of non-obvious costs.

fny 9y ago
It also depends heavily on whether you believe people who work in construction (i.e. blue collar workers) are an currency expendable on behalf of people who have cushy low risk jobs. I’d be inclined to agree with you if we all had the same chance of risking our lives for the greater good and we could mutually agree on what the odds should be, but I feel like that’s why we’be come to the conclusion that it’s probably best if people didn’t die on a construction site for the same of innovation. (Also, I’d bet negligence is probably a more proper cause.) Clinical trials for cancer are less fraught with the ethical problems of the construction worker since presumably the patient is that desperate for a cure, but we have general standards for these things like IRBs, protocols, and physicians trained to “do no harm” just to make sure the final product is safe and won’t guarantee a sooner death. Also, while we may be at a disadvantage since we can’t just throw money at the problem, we’re still making remarkable progress: https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/therapy/availability https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/therapy/availability

fny 9y ago

It also depends heavily on whether you believe people who work in construction (i.e. blue collar workers) are an currency expendable on behalf of people who have cushy low risk jobs. I’d be inclined to agree with you if we all had the same chance of risking our lives for the greater good and we could mutually agree on what the odds should be, but I feel like that’s why we’be come to the conclusion that it’s probably best if people didn’t die on a construction site for the same of innovation. (Also, I’d bet negligence is probably a more proper cause.) Clinical trials for cancer are less fraught with the ethical problems of the construction worker since presumably the patient is that desperate for a cure, but we have general standards for these things like IRBs, protocols, and physicians trained to “do no harm” just to make sure the final product is safe and won’t guarantee a sooner death. Also, while we may be at a disadvantage since we can’t just throw money at the problem, we’re still making remarkable progress: https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/therapy/availability https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/therapy/availability