Right—so we have already had 50+ years of trying and failing. A theoretical argument that we won’t succeed the first time does not tell us very much that we didn’t already know.
What is more interesting is the track record of engineers of not screwing up or killing people the first time.
We have records about engineers killing people for cars, trains, ships, aeroplanes and rockets. We have failure records from bridges, tunnels and skyscrapers.
Engineers do kill people—but often it is deliberately—e.g. nuclear bombs—or with society’s approval—e.g. car accidents. There are some accidents which are not obviously attributable to calculated risks—e.g. the Titanic, or the Tacoma Narrows bridge—but they typicallly represent a small fraction of the overall risks involved.
Right—so we have already had 50+ years of trying and failing. A theoretical argument that we won’t succeed the first time does not tell us very much that we didn’t already know.
What is more interesting is the track record of engineers of not screwing up or killing people the first time.
We have records about engineers killing people for cars, trains, ships, aeroplanes and rockets. We have failure records from bridges, tunnels and skyscrapers.
Engineers do kill people—but often it is deliberately—e.g. nuclear bombs—or with society’s approval—e.g. car accidents. There are some accidents which are not obviously attributable to calculated risks—e.g. the Titanic, or the Tacoma Narrows bridge—but they typicallly represent a small fraction of the overall risks involved.