This can be a critical mass thing, though. Some projects are pointless unless you get enough people involved, but then have worthwhile results.
I would also put ‘safety’ in the “valuable, but no one wants to use it” category (note - not create safety systems, but convincing the truck driver or forge worker or backyard chemist to implement and use them).
you get a lot of really passionate advocates for safety once one of their loved ones dies because of a safety incident. And assuming they don’t live under capitalism and thus have freedom of work, they can choose to dedicate their life to advocating for this safety issue.
And there we have the difference between advocating and enforcing. Plenty of people now have the time to focus on safety issues; doesn’t mean they get any more effect than the people advocating for veganism or environmentalism.
In a functioning system (and bear in mind that sometimes the US doesn’t have that, and I’m certainly not taking the US situation as a goal), a regulator is often going to step in and make you stop.
People only caring once it affects them personally means that the people who haven’t been affected yet are going to keep vibe-coding dams and drag-racing on public roads.
Then you need to get enough people willing to work on it. If you cannot, then its value is non-existent because it cannot exist without coercion.
When it comes to safety, as long as they are informed and not harming anyone else to do so then it is their choice to take as much risk as they are comfortable with taking. People tend to value their own safety but each values it differently than others, and it is their right to do so as long as they are not imposing harm on anyone else through their actions.
Coercion can be a relative thing - anything from slavery to a gentleman’s agreement that if you help me build a house, I’ll help you build a house, because neither of us wants to lift rafters on our own.
The work required to e.g. build a (reasonably large) bridge is substantial; the work required to maintain that bridge in a safe condition is also substantial and it’s quite well known in free software circles that maintenance is a lot less sexy than building another shiny new bridge - government can struggle with this too, but that’s where rigid safety and oversight systems come into it. Start looking at dams and it gets way more scary.
Many many safety failures affect far more than the person who made the decision. That said, you often find the opposite - many people value others’ safety more than their own.
This can be a critical mass thing, though. Some projects are pointless unless you get enough people involved, but then have worthwhile results.
I would also put ‘safety’ in the “valuable, but no one wants to use it” category (note - not create safety systems, but convincing the truck driver or forge worker or backyard chemist to implement and use them).
you get a lot of really passionate advocates for safety once one of their loved ones dies because of a safety incident. And assuming they don’t live under capitalism and thus have freedom of work, they can choose to dedicate their life to advocating for this safety issue.
And there we have the difference between advocating and enforcing. Plenty of people now have the time to focus on safety issues; doesn’t mean they get any more effect than the people advocating for veganism or environmentalism.
In a functioning system (and bear in mind that sometimes the US doesn’t have that, and I’m certainly not taking the US situation as a goal), a regulator is often going to step in and make you stop.
People only caring once it affects them personally means that the people who haven’t been affected yet are going to keep vibe-coding dams and drag-racing on public roads.
Social pressure is the most effective enforcement mechanism we have.
Rules and punishment not only create hierarchy but are surprisingly ineffective.
Then you need to get enough people willing to work on it. If you cannot, then its value is non-existent because it cannot exist without coercion.
When it comes to safety, as long as they are informed and not harming anyone else to do so then it is their choice to take as much risk as they are comfortable with taking. People tend to value their own safety but each values it differently than others, and it is their right to do so as long as they are not imposing harm on anyone else through their actions.
Coercion can be a relative thing - anything from slavery to a gentleman’s agreement that if you help me build a house, I’ll help you build a house, because neither of us wants to lift rafters on our own.
The work required to e.g. build a (reasonably large) bridge is substantial; the work required to maintain that bridge in a safe condition is also substantial and it’s quite well known in free software circles that maintenance is a lot less sexy than building another shiny new bridge - government can struggle with this too, but that’s where rigid safety and oversight systems come into it. Start looking at dams and it gets way more scary.
Many many safety failures affect far more than the person who made the decision. That said, you often find the opposite - many people value others’ safety more than their own.