We've known about global warming for almost 50 years and yet to this day the debate is divided between "eh" and "no, it isn't".
Coal plants have been consistently depositing smog in our lungs with no end in sight.
Boeing has successfully lobbied itself out of criminal charges for the deadly consequences of their (IMHO) negligence regarding the 737 Max.
Companies have stopped pretending that they'll put human lives before profit. As a human, I am therefore beyond giving any company the benefit of the doubt that they'll "engineer around it" when it comes to safety.
> We've known about global warming for almost 50 years and yet to this day the debate is divided between "eh" and "no, it isn't".
So much work is being done on that front.
> Coal plants have been consistently depositing smog in our lungs with no end in sight.
Not the #1 killer of humans. We're still making lots of progress on healthspan, especially in pulling people out of poverty. We're well ahead of where we were 50 years ago. People are no longer starving to death at unprecedented scale.
> Boeing has successfully lobbied itself out of criminal charges for the deadly consequences of their (IMHO) negligence regarding the 737 Max.
Sometimes bad things happen. Not to diminish these lives, but this is just a footnote in the list of impressive things technology and society have accomplished, though. Boeing and execs should face punishment, but this is a very small downside to a much greater set of accomplishments that vastly outweighs the bad.
> Companies have stopped pretending that they'll put human lives before profit. As a human, I am therefore beyond giving any company the benefit of the doubt that they'll "engineer around it" when it comes to safety.
What are you talking about? To just cite one instance, Waymo is already going to be one of the biggest needle movers in terms of human lives saved. Or another - look at what Moderna did during Covid.
Life is better than it used to be, not worse. You're wearing miasma-tinted glasses.
Yes, it is, but not nearly enough and it had to be done by dragging corporations kicking, lying and screaming every step of the way. Corporations, mind you, powerful enough to drive several of the wars of the last 50 years.
> We're still making lots of progress on healthspan
Yes, as long as your health insurance covers the treatment. UnitedHealth investors are suing the company for not willing to follow the "aggressive, anti-consumer tactics" that got their CEO murdered [1].
I've also personally heard a mildly drunk executive of a Fortune 500 company brag about how, on a cancer-related lawsuit, the US government would never let them go bankrupt because that would dry up the taxes they would collect otherwise. Time proved him right.
> Boeing and execs should face punishment, but...
They should, but they won't. And they are not the exception.
> Waymo is already going to be one of the biggest needle movers in terms of human lives saved (...) look at what Moderna did during Covid.
Uber made ignoring the laws at a worldwide scale their whole business model. And how has the market rewarded Moderna for their to humanity? Their stock is at its lowest since 2020.
People have been making the comparison to the robber barons recently, but I think they miss the point where the robber barons didn't have a worldwide surveillance apparatus and the kind of propaganda power that Orwell could only dream of.
I agree that technology has advanced for good in a lot of areas, but I also think it's worth noticing that many of these advances are behind gatekeepers who will burn a forest to the ground before upgrading infrastructure that's one hundred years old to keep shareholders happy.
We've known about global warming for almost 50 years and yet to this day the debate is divided between "eh" and "no, it isn't".
Coal plants have been consistently depositing smog in our lungs with no end in sight.
Boeing has successfully lobbied itself out of criminal charges for the deadly consequences of their (IMHO) negligence regarding the 737 Max.
Companies have stopped pretending that they'll put human lives before profit. As a human, I am therefore beyond giving any company the benefit of the doubt that they'll "engineer around it" when it comes to safety.