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Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies: Difference between revisions
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}}This is one of those “books that will change your life”. Well — that ''should'' change lives — that it was written in 1984 — {{author|Charles Perrow}} passed away in 2019 — suggests that, maybe it hasn’t: that the irrationalities that motivate so much of what we do are more pervasive than plainly written common sense. | }}This is one of those “books that will change your life”. Well — that ''should'' change lives — that it was written in 1984 — {{author|Charles Perrow}} passed away in 2019 — suggests that, maybe it hasn’t: that the irrationalities that motivate so much of what we do are more pervasive than plainly written common sense. | ||
{{author|Charles Perrow}} was a sociologist who fell into the discipline of [[systems analysis]]: analysing how social structures like businesses, governments and public utilities, being loose networks of autonomous individuals, work. Perrow’s focus fell upon organisations that present specific risks to operators, passengers, innocent bystanders — nuclear and other power stations, airways, shipping lines, but the read-across to the financial systems is obvious — where a combination of [[complexity]] and [[tight coupling]] mean that | {{author|Charles Perrow}} was a sociologist who fell into the discipline of [[systems analysis]]: analysing how social structures like businesses, governments and public utilities, being loose networks of autonomous individuals, work. Perrow’s focus fell upon organisations that present specific risks to operators, passengers, innocent bystanders — nuclear and other power stations, airways, shipping lines, but the read-across to the financial systems is obvious — where a combination of what he termed '''[[complexity|complex interactions]]''' and '''[[tight coupling]]''' in distributed systems mean that catastrophic accidents are not just likely but, from time to time, ''inevitable''. Such unpredictable failures are an intrinsic property of a complex, tightly coupled system, not merely a function of “operator error” that can be blamed on a negligent employee — although be assured, that is how management will be [[inclined]] to characterise any such event if they can possibly get away with it. | ||
If | If this is right, it has profound consequences for how we who inhabit complex, tightly-coupled systems, should think about risk. | ||
It seems inarguably right. | |||
===[[Complex interaction]]s and [[tight coupling]]=== | ===[[Complex interaction]]s and [[tight coupling]]=== | ||
First, some definitions. | First, some definitions. | ||