The Conquest of Hell Gate [pdf]

It’s fascinating to me what a different view of risk we had in the past.

The no damage being caused on the surface was a “new fact”. That would never fly today, for better or for worse.

I think one of the problems of modern society is the level of risk people deem acceptable - its now near zero, instead of "reasonable risks".

Aside from that, culturally the value we impart on a single human life has also changed too - death used to be much more common, infant death in particular - its not uncommon to go to an old cemetery and see a single family having buried three or more children, with another 2-3 having survived to adulthood. This was not something limited to the lower classes either, Calvin Coolidge had a son who died of sepsis from a blister while he was president.

Not to mention the discussions around risk are too coupled to political positions / zealotry now, so they can no longer be civilly discussed. If you ever take the position of wanting to accept what you believe to be reasonable risk, it's standard practice for the opposition to slander you as an evil person that wants to kill people/babies/homeless/whoever. For example: the other person in this very comment thread that interpreted you saying we don't have acceptable levels of risk anymore as people like you wanting to poison the water table.

An illustrating example might also be the US cities like Seattle that have their "vision zero" programs. A "vision", and related actions, to get to zero traffic related deaths or serious injuries every year. It's the official position of these city governments that literally any non-zero death rate is unacceptable. No matter how low the death rate is (and it's already very low). They officially accept zero risk. Is that reasonable? Is it even about the death rate or something else? Either way, it's fully undebatable.