But at the end of the day it's all just a N-way tradeoff between body parts/health outcomes, time and money, and god knows whatever other factors you seek to define.

Nobody blinks an eye when you say you're making a financial gamble and if it pays off you'll be able to retire young enough to enjoy it.

But everyone loses their minds if you're putting up your health instead of dollars, as if those aren't fungible.

Take for example (and this is a literal example from my friend group, not hypothetical) a man in the metal fabrication business. On day one he can either buy the "cheap and unsafe" old flywheel press brake or he can take out a loan for the modern hydraulic equivalent that is much safer, but also 3-5x slower depending on what you're using it for. That's a lot of money in his pocket over time. He never lost a finger in 30yr and ultimately sold out. Now, his lungs aren't great. But if he'd been slaving away at a hydraulic press all those years he'd never have had to either take a much smaller cash out or wait so long that he couldn't enjoy the retirement.

Now, obviously there's not a direct tradeoff between disabling guards or "unsafe choices" and productivity, and there's not a direct tradeoff between "safe choices" and health outcomes. And you can always make good or bade tradeoffs. What's a good tradeoff for the self employed 40yo isn't necessarily smart for the wage laborer at 20, or the business owner who is responsible for the wage laborers.

And at the end of the day it's all safety choices to some extend, but those safety choices are also time and money choices. Do you chock your forklift every time or do you trust the parking brake? It's really easy to sit there and say chock it every time but the nickels and dimes add up, but on the flip side of that coin the health and safety risk exposure adds up too[1].

These tradeoffs are all inter-related and the people saying to "do all the safety all the time" are just as stupid as the people saying you can run a cutting torch naked.

[1] if anyone wants to make a low effort quip about the step stool and utility knife being the most dangerous tools in the shop now's your chance.

This is not what the word "fungible" means. Not at all. Dollars are fungible. You can replace any $1 bill with any other and it doesn't matter. Calling trading X for Y where calculations of comparable value have to occur is exactly the opposite of fungible.

You’re over complicating things because you have no idea what you’re talking about.

At every worksite, the equation is: how much will the company lose in lost productivity and workman’s comp if someone is injured. And the equation goes in favor of safety every time.