It's more complicated than that. For example, software in car or electronics companies is not a cost center, but is nevertheless treated as an ugly stepchild most of the time. They usually have a culture, where "hardware" engineering (mechanical, electrical etc.) is real engneering, while software is easy in comparison and thus can be deprioritized.
> I find myself falling into this line of thought a lot: why should we make tradeoffs that favor the earth instead of hyper-accelerating progress to get off of it in preparation for its inevitable demise?
Get off and go where? Anywhere we could go is a million times worse for human habitation than post-demise Earth.
I think the idea is: assume sufficient technological advancement to be able to reach or even create countless other essentially exact replicas of earth? Barring that, plenty of ideas have been floated along the lines of extraterrestrial colonization and/or intergenerational spaceships.
I’m not arguing strongly in favor of “getting off it” so I’m not going to make much effort defending the position.
But I can imagine scenarios where we have to leave earth with intergenerational ships and only then acquire the ability to terraform, harness a star’s energy or travel at light speed.
You don't _have_ to work harder, as evidenced by those people who do the bare minimum. You just care about your work more than people who pay you for it (or the manager hired to manage you), which is the cause of your frustration here IMO.
I care about my teammates. Letting them down by not working to my full potential makes me feel bad. I think this is embedded into my pysche from years of military experience and then shift work.
> And while this might be healthier for you as an individual, it's bad for the Economy.
... an while it's bad for the economy, it may be good for the country. Notice how Europe doesn't have regular school shootings, rampant crime or 100k people a year killing themselves with Fentanyl. It may have something to do with culture that prioritizes other things besides the economy.
That's how it works in Poland. A client required me to get an insurance for my 1-person contracting company, and I was able to get a policy that only covers trivial things like spilling hot coffee on someone, but none of the software risks. The client was satisfied (they're a giant bureucracy, and the the contractor procurement people just needed any policy to be able to tick a box), while I spent minimal cash.
The relatively low (and I have to tick boxes for most of the high risk industries on the form) amount that I pay each year for what seems to be a nice PI policy is easily worth it for the peace of mind.
I would too I think, if I lived in the US. But the culture around law in Poland is pretty much opposite of the US. People just aren't lawsuit-happy, probably partially because the courts are inefficient and you can wait a long time for a verdict, and partially because the courts often don't award that much in those verdicts (and those absurd multi-million verdicts for trivial things that are a thing in the US would never happen here). Here, I've never heard of a software contractor even being sued by a client, let alone lose and have to pay anything - and I've been in the game for 20 years. First time I hear it does happen, I'll reconsider getting a better policy.
The requirement for the policy some clients have are only there because they're multinationals and it's a company-wide policy. Local clients never expect contractors to have a policy.
Yeah, that's fair too. Admittedly my work puts me into contact with relatively litigious parties.
I think at my current premiums I would need to pay insurance for 100 or 1000 years to even get close to the sort of numbers that get thrown around for a day's worth of damages on some of these projects.
The likelihood is absolutely that nothing serious will go wrong, that if it did it wouldn't make it to the courts and furthermore that if it did it wouldn't be negligence of any kind, or was covered within the contract itself.
But the thought of having skipped out given the possible consequences; No thanks, value my sleep too much.
As things are now, I'm mandated to spend $XXXX/year on insurance that I've never used and know, for a near certainty, that I'm never going to use. I'd really rather not. I've looked at the statistics and, for me, it's a better bet to eschew insurance. (Which, generally speaking, it would have to be, otherwise the insurance industry would be losing money.)
I don't want to make any claims, though. I'd be much happier in a position where I'm totally unable to make claims. (And don't have to deal with the insurance industry.)
I'd even pay good money for (de facto-) fake insurance, just so mandates and overly-bureaucratic clients/partners leave well enough alone.
I think you're missing the point of why these "overly-bureaucratic clients" are insisting on insurance. I don't want you to have insurance to keep you safe, I need you to have insurance to keep me safe. When the widget you built for me breaks and damages my customer and I end up owing them €1m, I want to be able to recoup at least some of that cost from you. It won't be you making a claim on your insurance, but me (or rather my insurance company)
And as someone who used to be at one of those "overly-bureaucratic clients", we not only required (and checked) that you had insurance, but also that your insurance coverage was actually high enough for project in question.
> When the widget you built for me breaks and damages my customer and I end up owing them €1m, I want to be able to recoup at least some of that cost from you.
I'm not sure that follows.
I build something, send it to you. You integrate it, test it, make it production-ready, and ship it. If something breaks in testing, that's pretty normal, and it would be on me to fix -- and presumably contractual agreements would preclude damages at that stage.
If something breaks after you ship it to your own customer, that really ain't my responsibility. If you try to make it my responsibility, it would be a matter for the courts and not a matter for insurance. If you're looking for a quick payout from insurance, or if you think that insurance companies are less motivated to defend claims in court, that's reasonable -- but it's by no means necessary, and certainly not a social good. Insurance sets up incentive problems that ought to be avoided.
it would be a matter for the courts and not a matter for insurance
The specifics of the contract is besides the point. Taking you to court is meaningless unless you also have insurance, since if you're a freelancer or small company there is no way to get any money out of you. You'll just declare bankruptcy and be on your way and we'd still be stuck with the bill, even if it was you that screwed up. You having insurance is insurance for your customers that they have some chance of recompense if you screw them in some sort of way.
Jailing people just for having a stake in a company that did something illegal could kill the economy. People would be affraid to invest in companies, and move money to simple things like real estate (or to foreign investments).
How would they know that though? It's a huge personal risk that can be alleviated simply by investing in anything else in the world besides US companies.
