> Seems like you don't buy into the swiss cheese model of accidents. Because other safety mechanisms and good practices exist, it doesn't mean that there's not reasons to add additional safety.
I think it's reasonable to say "we have done enough" at some point though. We can debate where the point is, but safety is not an unalloyed good. It has a cost, and reasonable people can disagree over whether a particular safety invention has enough ROI to justify its existence.
For example, we wouldn't countenance banning all motor vehicles even though we could eliminate all car related deaths with that one simple trick. We would get a fair bit of payoff, but the cost would just be too high to justify it. Similarly, if we could inflict a very minor cost on everyone in the world to prevent one death per year, that would be too low of a payoff even though the cost is very low.
So yes, we can always add more layers of defense against accidents (or security incidents). But eventually, the juice isn't worth the squeeze and you stop. So I don't think the Swiss cheese model really can justify any particular intervention by itself; you have to evaluate the specifics of whether the particular intervention is worth it.
> So I don't think the Swiss cheese model really can justify any particular intervention by itself; you have to evaluate the specifics of whether the particular intervention is worth it.
You don't need to prevent too many maimings to pay for a whole lot of these and their occasional consumables.
Sure, risk homeostasis will claw some of the benefit back, too.
> I think it's reasonable to say "we have done enough" at some point though. We can debate where the point is, but safety is not an unalloyed good. It has a cost, and reasonable people can disagree over whether a particular safety invention has enough ROI to justify its existence.
That has to be a point in time decision though. Closed circuit TV backup cameras in cars have been possible since I dunno, probably the 70s, certainly 80s technology could have done it; but they weren't a reasonable intervention (outside of say armored cars for currency transports) until more recently as cameras and displays have gotten less expensive and quality has improved. Also helpful as modern vehicle design has resulted in significantly reduced visibility compared to the past, but that's a rant for a car article :P