Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:
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For some underwhelming value of "always", and anyway appliances aren't all that engineering makes.
Off the top of my head, cases when "harms take longer to show up & disprove than benefits" outside medicine included leaded gasoline, chlorofluorocarbons, asbestos, cheap O-rings in space shuttles, the 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the use of two-digit year numbers...
Look at Feynman's analysis. I'd say this is a good example of disproportionate channeling of optimism.