Comment by vander_elst

> Some people are going to get burnt, probably quite bad

It's all lighthearted hypotheticals until someone you love or you yourself in a moment of inattention make a catastrophic mistake.

In theory, we don't need guardrails on roads. Just stay on the fucking road and if you swerve off it, you'll get a lesson in why that's a bad idea.

In practice, we are primates whose cognitive systems are made of squishy grey goop and we make mistakes all the time. Building systems that turn predictable mistakes into catastrophic consequences is what we used to call "poor engineering".

> I dunno, tbh I'd be in the camp of putting a banner 'run this at your own risk' and then let it go wild. Some people are going to get burnt, probably quite bad, but I guess it's more effective to learn like that rather than reading stuff upfront and take necessary precautions and maybe these will be cautionary tales also for others.

Maybe we should take the same approach to bridge design! Think of the efficiency! Slap a disclaimer on that bad boy and see how many people choose to use the bridge at their own risk. I’m sure we can just assume people aren’t doing irresponsible things like driving school buses over it, and even if they were, it’s their own responsibility.

It’s really not so bad if you focus your messaging on how many people won’t die… and’s they’ll all lean from the mistakes of the dead and choose a more reliable bridge. And it would be so much cheaper and faster to build bridges so you’d have a fraction of the downtime. I think it’s a winner!

Sure there would be larger consequences for the local job market and such when they get disrupted, but hey… if you’re going to make an omelet…