While the Titanic's owners never actually claimed their ship was unsinkable, the crews' and passengers' overconfidence in her advanced construction proved fateful. Tenner points to is a tragic Chicago fire where overconfidence in technology cost many lives. When it burned during a performance a few months after opening in 1903, more than 600 people lost their lives in what remains the largest American disaster of its kind. A recent example, he says, is the push to mandate trigger locks on guns, which has gained momentum since the Columbine High School shooting incident. The issue of gun violence and youth is a greater social issue and trigger locks are merely a technological fix.
Technological fixes are more illusory than a genuine solution.
A less pressing illustration of this phenomenon is the creation of fat-free food items, such as potato chips. These chips are supposed to a viable technological solution, but it won't work if you eat 10 times the amount you're supposed to. The real issue may be why people feel the need to overeat. To illustrate this, Tibbetts points to the infamous Ford Pinto of the 1970s, which in a handful of cases exploded upon impact and killed several people. But they were wrong, economically and morally.