Passage Summary: P argues that new safety rules are pointless because they wouldn't have stopped a fire that happened last year. Q counters that the rules are still valuable because they will prevent other accidents that cost the lab money.

Conclusion: The new safety regulations are actually useful despite their inability to have prevented a specific past fire.

Reasoning: Regulations are useful if they prevent financial waste, and since these regulations prevent some accidents, they save money even when no injuries occur.

Analysis: Q responds by challenging the narrow criteria P uses to define 'usefulness.' While P focuses exclusively on a specific historical failure, Q introduces a broader standard: the prevention of financial loss. To identify this method, notice how Q accepts P's premise about the fire but argues that it is insufficient to support the conclusion that the regulations are entirely useless. Q effectively shifts the goalposts of the debate from 'preventing that specific fire' to 'preventing any costly accident.'