Most 'shocking' tech disasters were actually predicted in history books years before they ever happened.
We often treat technological failures as brand-new surprises, but 95% of them follow patterns that have happened before. We aren't failing to predict the future; we are failing to remember the past.
The Harm Blindness Framework: A Practical Application Methodology for Stakeholder Harm Prevention in Technology Development
SSRN · 6268878
Technology development consistently produces preventable harm to stakeholders who were identifiable at the time of key decisions. This paper introduces the Harm Blindness Framework, a checkpoint-based methodology designed to surface stakeholder impacts during development rather than after deployment. The framework operationalizes consultation of historical precedent through structured analysis at four decision points: ideation, design, testing, and launch. Validation against 161 historical cases