But At What Cost?

As a race, humans are really bad at doing cost benefit analysis. We might try and weigh up the pros and cons but we all have a tendency to exaggerate the pros if they are beneficial to us and downplay the cons that we can't directly see. This is also the case if the downsides are not immediate but will affect us at some point in the future. We see this pattern throughout history. We find something useful or pleasurable and later discover that it is harmful or unethical, and then continue doing it for another 50 years. Asbestos # Take asbestos for example. It has been used for hundreds of years, it is dirt cheap, strong and fire resistant. So we used it everywhere in tiles, in furniture and even in clothing. The first documented death from asbestos was in 1906. In 1918 insurers stopped covering asbestos workers due to the known health risks. It took until 1999 to completely ban it in the UK and until 2024 in the US. We knew it was killing people but we kept using it because it was…