> Comparatively minor errors result in comparatively major failures. If you forget one rivet on a building, the engineering tolerances will make it such that the building will not fail as a result.
... but a systemic design error can cause it to fail, and this happens a lot when new techniques are developed and deployed. Change implies the increased possibility of failure.
I don't know why people keep holding up the construction industry as the paradigm here. Large civil engineering projects are notorious for cost overruns. The industry used to routinely get people killed during construction; only really post WW2 in the West has this been solved. It's still possible to have big post-construction disasters. One of the big political issues in the UK at the moment is the deployment of flammable cladding on multistorey buildings - this turns a fire in a single unit into potentially the loss of the whole building and many of its occupants.
You've all seen the Tacoma Narrows bridge video, right? But all sorts of innovations have their problems, mostly invisibly to the public. The last time someone attempted to disrupt tunneling before the "boring company", the "New Austrian Tunneling Method", it turned out to have serious problems: https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/natm.htm
... but a systemic design error can cause it to fail, and this happens a lot when new techniques are developed and deployed. Change implies the increased possibility of failure.
I don't know why people keep holding up the construction industry as the paradigm here. Large civil engineering projects are notorious for cost overruns. The industry used to routinely get people killed during construction; only really post WW2 in the West has this been solved. It's still possible to have big post-construction disasters. One of the big political issues in the UK at the moment is the deployment of flammable cladding on multistorey buildings - this turns a fire in a single unit into potentially the loss of the whole building and many of its occupants.
You've all seen the Tacoma Narrows bridge video, right? But all sorts of innovations have their problems, mostly invisibly to the public. The last time someone attempted to disrupt tunneling before the "boring company", the "New Austrian Tunneling Method", it turned out to have serious problems: https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/natm.htm