This assumes 100% competent and knowledgeable users. Nobody is in every field, and so the question is "do we freely hand out footguns, or should we put a safety

This assumes 100% competent and knowledgeable users. Nobody is in every field, and so the question is "do we freely hand out footguns, or should we put a safety in place" In some fields, the decision is easy. We're by now culturally aligned that shipping encryption libs with bad APIs or a default-on footgun option is a bad idea. Clearly, with less impactful tools, we still have more debate ahead of us. I'm hoping that we'll realize at some point that proper engineering is always fail-closed[1] if there are destructive consequences. Yes, it might temporarily inconvenience some, but it prevents harm to more. Ultimately, the question is "Who is more important, you, or the rest of the world". [1] fail-open if you're EE. We're so bad, we can't even decide on terminology.