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Comment by willglynn | Hacker News Reader

From the indictment:

    19. HENRY and SCHOOLEY lacked the technical expertise to properly design a
        complex amusement ride such as Verrückt. Neither of the two men possessed any
        kind of technical or engineering credential relevant to amusement ride design or
        safety. As SCHOOLEY admitted, "If we actually knew how to do this, and it could
        be done that easily, it wouldn't be that spectacular."

Full text:

http://www.kansascity.com/latest-news/article206611679.ece/B...

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>"If we actually knew how to do this, and it could be done that easily, it wouldn't be that spectacular."

The same logic applies for a majority of cryptocurrency and gig economy startups.

Most of which don't put lives at risk.

just the wealth/livelihoods of people who don't know any better.

"Most" might be true but it certainly doesn't apply to all. Uber's self driving car recently killed someone and there are plenty of indirect examples of deaths like the reported suicides after Mt Gox collapsed. Either way, "it isn't going to kill anyone" shouldn't be an excuse for ignoring the law or reasons for why that law might have been created in the first place.

so basically, they were doing water slide _research_ instead of water slide _engineering_

Water slide experimentation might be more apt.

Don't test in production. Or with human lives.

> Don't test in production. Or with human lives.

They surely tested it with their own life before. It worked. ;-)

"Disrupting the water slide economy."

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