Safety Man

Safety is not about avoiding all risk, but rather about risk management, for example, fire is fun but requires careful management of the associated risks to have a good time without unintentional injury or damage ;)

Many people think it is boring to be safe, I think it is boring to be dead.

Also consider: is it possible to eliminate all risks? Can you even enumerate the risks you care about? What would it cost for example to replace all the pedestrian crossings in your country with bridges, and maybe to install crash barriers alongside all roads? - surely it's worth it just to save one life? (I.e. we do actually trade-off against major risks every day.)

It's worth noting that in some countries you can fail a driving test for "failing to make adequate progress". (I.e. it's much easier to be safe if you don't have to worry significantly about progress.)

Just imagine for example a theorem prover that you've been told to use. Completely compulsory - and the only purpose in using it is correctness. Now this system, to be kind, let's say it's unpolished. It is incredibly verbose and not terribly helpful - but that's okay you're prepared to make significant effort. You battle with it for months - and people say it's good for you to learn to address your mistakes. Now that's one thing. Unfortunately for you, the error message you get from it most often is "segmentation fault". Nothing wrong with safety and quality standards, but you're held to one standard and other people are allowed to get away with things that barely work at all - which raises "fair and reasonable" safety standards as an issue.

It's easy to scare people, to whine and bitch and to preach over safety - but is it reasonable? Can reasonable/adequate progress be made? Is everyone subject to the same safety standards? If you do your part, will others reciprocate decently to do their part? Even sane, reasonable people can reach their limits with the armchair safety critics.