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Comment by chc | Hacker News Reader

Alternative explanation: Being a pessimist is not productive. Woo-hoo, you were something in the ballpark of right. Is the world better because of it? If you look at every situation and assume the worst, you'll be right sometimes, but you'll never accomplish anything.

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I prefer my nuclear engineers to pay attention to the worst-case scenario, even if it does make them a wet blanket at parties.

You're conflating the question of nuclear engineers preparing for the worst with question of whether, given two possible scenarios, we should just assume the worst (and, as implied by the GP, suggest that there is something defective with people who didn't make the negative assumption). The differences are incalculable.

However, nuclear power generation is serious. Things happen very fast and can turn nasty in milliseconds if you don't pay attention, if you don't understand what is happening, if you don't know what you are doing and if you don't have the right tools at hand to deal with whatever is going on.

One thing I learned in school is that you respect any machine bigger than you.

I have no idea why things went so completely wrong there. I always assumed people who design and build nuclear reactors do so in ways they can't fail. Now I am more inclined to believe they are happy to have plans B through G instead of having a really bulletproof plan A. It's certainly more impressive to list a long series of failsafe devices than just having a very unimpressive core that can cool itself in the event of an emergency.

It appears they were much less respectful than they should have been. Some people may end up paying with their lives.

The wise man knows when pessimism is warranted.

Only the paranoid survive.

No, paranoid means unreasonably anxious. If people had an appropriate level of concern that kept them alive, they were by definition not paranoid.

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