Your step four is incomplete. In addition to accepting a new normal, we put limits on technology and address the harms. We didn't roll over and accept, say, the destruction of the ozone layer. We put restrictions on the use of CFCs, and we invented new refrigerants that were much less harmful. Though there has been some recent backsliding due to rogue emitters, these measures were effective at stopping and eventually reversing the degradation of the ozone layer.

Some more examples include unleaded gasoline, breaks without asbestos, paint and cosmetics that don't include heavy metals, light bulbs that are much more efficient, etc. We've also figured out how to make fuels that don't contain all much sulfur, thus avoiding issues with acid rain.

This is an attitude I see on HN a lot. Technological innovation is seen as unstoppable and all powerful - until it's time to innovate new ways to address the problems we've created, and then there's apparently no possibility of coming up with innovative solutions. We're to accept ourselves as passive actors, caught up in the currents of history, with no agency to alter course.

An example that I find haunting is OceanGate and Stockton Rush. Rush was all for being innovative when it came to novel submersible construction. But when his engineers wanted to inspect the hull for degradation - can't be done, the hull is too thick to scan. You might expect someone who views themselves as a fearless innovator to see that as an opportunity to develop a new methodology or technology. But Rush was only a fearless innovator when it pleased him, and so he took himself and his customers to their deaths.

Frankly I think this attitude is a bad excuse, and not one that society will tolerate forever. This is the path to crippling regulations and trust busting. We can't just foist our externalities on the rest of society forever and not expect them to eventually decide we're incapable of self regulating.