>But we fumbled that because we (collectively) have no idea what we are doing.
Because, almost entirely, the software development industry has disclaimed all responsibility. It's super common for people to try to do shit they have no experience or skill at, push their effort to be adopted by others, then when it crashes and burns they have no accountability. If software "engineers" adopted the rigors and accountability and dignity of traditional engineering, the industry would be very different.
Even traditional engineering is now being coerced by "move fast and break things" management.
It feels like a plague of ignorance and enshittification has silently taken over everything.