The meta point I'm trying to share is that if you're trying to convince a technical audience(which HN certainly is) berating people by saying "I know better because I have this slip of paper" is the quickest way to get someone to dig in and dismiss your idea.
Engineers are natural skeptics, arguing from the technical side will always be the stronger position.
I no longer work as an engineer. I apply the engineer and safety rules developed for airlines, nuclear power, oil & gas to patient safety. We put in "forcing functions" to ensure safety. For example, a driver cannot pit their car in reverse without their foot on the brake.
As far as I can tell the design flaw in the Tesla (which I have already Stated) is that the object detection radar sensor did not see high enough for clearance of the car. Musk mentioned in a twitter feed that they didn't want to detect overhead signs, but the signs must be high enough to clear large truck so the radar sensors should have been looking 8 to 10 feet vertically but the were not. That is why the car crashed. Not operator error. Not beta software. Not going 74 miles per hour. The car lacked the appropriate radar sensor to detect vertical 8 to 10 feet or so. Musk and supportes can spin but the engineer asks why the sensor wasn't there. To me, it appears to be a flaw in the thought process and it is hard to understand how the autopilot could be allowed to be turned on without the proper object detection sensor. And this basic flaw makes me concerned about other flaws in the design.
The meta point I'm trying to share is that if you're trying to convince a technical audience(which HN certainly is) berating people by saying "I know better because I have this slip of paper" is the quickest way to get someone to dig in and dismiss your idea.
Engineers are natural skeptics, arguing from the technical side will always be the stronger position.