81,912
edits
Risk taxonomy: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| (2 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
| Line 5: | Line 5: | ||
===The problem with risk taxonomies=== | ===The problem with risk taxonomies=== | ||
{{JC}} has ''two'' reservations about risk taxonomies: | {{JC}} has ''two'' reservations about risk taxonomies: | ||
====The false comfort blanket==== | ====The [[Known known|false comfort blanket]]==== | ||
Any [[taxonomy]], like a map, can only document the territory you ''know'', have raked over, surveyed and measured. ''Stables from which the horse has bolted'', so to say. This is of a piece with the [[Mediocre lawyer|common lawyer]]’s usual mode of reasoning, the [[doctrine of precedent]], whose organising principle is to move ''forward'' by exclusive reference to what lies ''behind''. This is all very well in times of plenty, when the tide is rising, all boats are floating, those swimming nude are safely concealed from the neck down and all is well in the world. Here, the world behaves according to the narrative we have supplied it — we are in a period of “[[normal science]]”<ref>{{Author|Thomas Kuhn}}, {{br|The Structure of Scientific Revolutions}}. If you take ''one'' book recommendation from the {{tag|JC}}, make it this one. Or {{br|The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind}}.</ref>. But by the same token, the acute risks are in abeyance. Aslan is ''not'' on the move. Even if you left the door open, the horse has a nosebag full of hay and is’t going anywhere. | Any [[taxonomy]], like a map, can only document the territory you ''know'', have raked over, surveyed and measured. ''Stables from which the horse has bolted'', so to say. This is of a piece with the [[Mediocre lawyer|common lawyer]]’s usual mode of reasoning, the [[doctrine of precedent]], whose organising principle is to move ''forward'' by exclusive reference to what lies ''behind''. This is all very well in times of plenty, when the tide is rising, all boats are floating, those swimming nude are safely concealed from the neck down and all is well in the world. Here, the world behaves according to the narrative we have supplied it — we are in a period of “[[normal science]]”<ref>{{Author|Thomas Kuhn}}, {{br|The Structure of Scientific Revolutions}}. If you take ''one'' book recommendation from the {{tag|JC}}, make it this one. Or {{br|The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind}}.</ref>. But by the same token, the acute risks are in abeyance. Aslan is ''not'' on the move. Even if you left the door open, the horse has a nosebag full of hay and is’t going anywhere. | ||
But what happens when our carefully constructed narrative falls apart? Those stressed scenarios in which, as the old saw has it, {{maxim|I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone}}, and [[black swan]]s will be angrily flapping about. Then, your [[paradigm]] has failed. People around you are losing their heads and blaming it on you and your stupid [[taxonomy]], ''which suddenly isn’t working''. | But what happens when our carefully constructed narrative falls apart? Those stressed scenarios in which, as the old saw has it, {{maxim|I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone}}, and [[black swan]]s will be angrily flapping about. Then, your [[paradigm]] has failed. People around you are losing their heads and blaming it on you and your stupid [[taxonomy]], ''which suddenly isn’t working''. | ||
''See also: {{risk|known known}}s'' | |||
====It’s a [[narrative]]==== | ====It’s a [[narrative]]==== | ||
Any [[taxonomy]] is a [[narrative]]. Like any hierarchical organising system, a taxonomy commits you to one way of looking at the world, ''at the expense of all others''. Now this a necessary evil when it comes to concrete physical things, like books: the [[Dewey decimal system]] is a single hierarchy by necessity: a physical thing cannot be in two places at once. So all library users agree a common taxonomy (subject matter, not author, or title, or publisher) and, for better or worse, stick to it. This has a consequent effect on how | Any [[taxonomy]] is a [[narrative]]. Like any hierarchical organising system, a taxonomy commits you to one way of looking at the world, ''at the expense of all others''. Now this a necessary evil when it comes to concrete physical things, like books: the [[Dewey decimal system]] is a single hierarchy — a ''[[narrative]]'' — by necessity: a physical thing cannot be in two places at once. So all library users agree a common taxonomy (subject matter, not author, or title, or publisher) and, for better or worse, stick to it. | ||
This has a consequent effect on how one thinks about the world: if you want to find the book you're looking for, you must accept the prevailing taxonomy (what good is using another taxonomy, however suitable, if it means never being able to find the book you are after?) Since the need for physical book storage has changed — we can now enforce a [[René Descartes|Cartesian]] split between the book ''as intellectual concept'' and ''as physical artifact'', and the physical artifact isn’t the interesting bit — the [[Dewey decimal system]] has more or less disappeared from use. Boolean search means you can search on any keyword you fancy. | |||
{{dewey decimal system}} | {{dewey decimal system}} | ||
| Line 20: | Line 24: | ||
*[[Black swan]] | *[[Black swan]] | ||
*[[Doctrine of precedent]] | *[[Doctrine of precedent]] | ||
*{{risk|Rumsfeld’s taxonomy}} | |||
{{ref}} | {{ref}} | ||