I wonder if licensing really even is the right way to avoid harm even in industries like aviation and medicine. At least: licensing in its current form, which is pretty all encompassing.

If licensing were merely focused on knowing your own limitations, avoiding harm, and transparency rather than being all mixed up with general education and sometimes extremely overbroad vocational training that is only tenuously connection to the actual vocation... I'd be less skeptical.

Obviously simply dumping licensing and having a snake-oil free for all is probably not an improvement. But the choice shouldn't need to be "no regulation at all" and "status quo regulation".