Comment by PaulHoule
13 hours ago
It's the argument of Normal Accidents by Charles Perrow
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691004129/no...
which is a book that I enjoy less now than the first time I read it. He was worried that shipping and aviation were both going to get more dangerous whereas that perception of a safety crisis in shipping in the 1970s went away and aviation got much much safer.
Never read that book but I also agree that safety can be demonstrably improved and it's pretty clear that aviation is safer now than in the 70s. One thing that may have helped is that regulations have been slow to loosen since advanced safety mechanisms have been implemented. One could imagine safety regulations loosening alot and ending up back in a lower-safety aviation world.