However if you said we couldn't engage in any activity that could kill people, your loved ones would die due to causes that technology can save.
A balance has to be achieved that allows productive activity to make our lives better, while providing incentives to make the side effects of that activity not harm us.
> However if you said we couldn't engage in any activity that could kill people, your loved ones would die due to causes that technology can save.
Would you mind expanding on how the first part of that sentence relates to the second part?
Are you proposing the argument "We can't have cars because they might kill people" is valid? I don't think so.
Whereas "We can't have fracking because it poisons the ground water" seems reasonable. Benzene is a known human carcinogen[1][2]
You write of a balance and propose that a way to achieve balance is to financially compensate, via an insurance, people, but how do you limit the liability of the insurance? Can people four generations hence make a claim too?
>Whereas "We can't have fracking because it poisons the ground water" seems reasonable. Benzene is a known human carcinogen[1][2]
How many people die in auto accidents as compared to Benzene originated cancers? Cars kill humans on a vast scale. They even sometimes kill people who want nothing to do with cars, like pedestrians, or cyclists. If your success metric is "lives saved", then pulling cars off the road is the sure winner, no?
I'm not saying deliberately leaking Benzene into the water system and vehicular accidents are the same. I'm saying this problem is difficult.
A balance has to be achieved that allows productive activity to make our lives better, while providing incentives to make the side effects of that activity not harm us.