Comment by everdrive
5 hours ago
People are fundamentally short-term thinkers. Just imagine spraying neurotoxins on your lawn. You're "saved" from the "terror" of noticing more than one kind of grass, but of course you're incrementally increased the cancer risk for yourself, your children, and who knows who else. This is just one example; people do this constantly. Plastic fleece puts an untold amount of poison into the environment, but "I need to be warm RIGHT NOW." etc. Or lead paint. "It's only toxic when it breaks down, and that won't be for decades!"
Why would programming be any different?
All the issues you mention here have a death horizon: the people engaged in the behaviour will be dead when its effects are most acute. That they engage in it then isnt very mysterious.
That doesnt clearly apply here
The problem is further away when the next quarter, which for some companies, might as well be in the year 3000.