- "lead to the opposite effect in such a case, namely hiding the fact that they lost the capsule."

If you think about it, the impact's more pervasive and serious than that. Even simply saying, "hey, isn't there a potential issue with this bolt" shifts the appearance of blame on the person who's asking. When something does go wrong, the lawyer-attitude types can point to your words, and say "look: they were aware of possibility X at time Y, and they failed to stop it. They were negligent". "If you raised issue A, why then did you fail to take actions B, C, and D, and document them appropriately? You were negligent". To discuss Issue A is high-friction and risky -- for all values of A.

That's at the core of legal culture: "don't put it in writing"; "don't talk to the opposing counsel"; "don't make public statements unless we vetted them (to be as vague as possible)". Opacity. What aspect of human nature underlies this? It's this: blame is nebulous, and it attaches to whatever's most visible. Guileless honesty is a *hazard* in a culture of suspicion.

Obviously that's the exact opposite of what you want from an engineering culture! You want anyone to be able to raise issues freely, fearlessly.

That's the true cost of a blaming-people culture. You're not merely disincentivizing communication at the very final stage ("cover up the disaster"); you disincentivize all communication about risk, at any time. Anything that places you visibly closer to responsibility is a peril.

The part that really drives me up the wall is when people complain about this kind of "don't ask don't tell" ass covering behavior and then turn right around and confirm it was the right course of action by calling for the book to be thrown left and right in every case of wrongdoing.

Naturally HN often has me doing laps on the ceiling.