Re:Remembering Allan McDonald, who refused to approve the Ch...
by jrochkind1 on Monday March 08, 2021 @01:26PM
(#26389498)
(It's also interesting that McDonald did NOT "quit and find a new job" -- he stayed there! Even though he thinks people treated him poorly and it harmed his career. Maybe it wasn't so easy for him to quit and find a new job either).
It takes courage to take actual risks and make actual sacrifices to do the right thing.
You are right that it takes a lot less courage if you are sure you can just "quit and find a new job" and end up just fine. I'm sure most people would do the right thing when there is no cost to them at all of doing so and they are confident that is so, that's not the issue.
Honestly your confidence that of course you would do the right thing always just makes me think you've never faced a hard decision, or have always convinced yourself that no decision that would involve a significant personal sacrifice or loss was ever the right thing.
The latter is what lots of people do, it's not that they say "oh yeah I'm going to kill the astronauts because my career is more important", all those other people who overruled McDonald convinced themselves that it's not gonna kill the astronauts at all, so they didn't have to face the choice.