Foresight Blindness, Hindsight Bias and Risk One of the beauties of fallibility is what Alan Watts called The Wisdom of Insecurity . Watts describes how binary worldviews create fear and dogma, making people frightened and concocting securities that don’t exist. Watts thinking helps one step out of … [Read more...] about Foresight Blindness, Hindsight Bias and Risk
fallibility
All Things Must Pass in Risk
As we approach the end of another year we often look back and look forward, for what has past and what we might expect. We look forward using Hope and Imagination and only the delusional in safety think about the future with prediction. I am reminded of that wonderful song by George Harrison All … [Read more...] about All Things Must Pass in Risk
Courting Infallibility in Safety
Courting Infallibility in Safety One of the best questions one can ask of anyone spruiking zero is: please tell me what will happen tomorrow? Or perhaps next week? Of course they can’t, no one can. Such is the beauty of fallibility Just imagine how dreadful life would be if we had insight … [Read more...] about Courting Infallibility in Safety
Emergence and Fallibility – A Video
A conversation about how events ‘emerge’ and the nature of fallibility is essential for understanding risk. The discussion is based upon the SPoR Emergence tool and the free book Fallibility and Risk. Unfortunately, you don’t hear the language of fallibility anywhere in safety because such language … [Read more...] about Emergence and Fallibility – A Video
Make Safety Personal, Another Meaningless Safety Slogan
Skills in critical linguistics are essential in managing risk. The language we use and the extended para-linguistics we use, have an enormous influence on decision making. Anyone in marketing, advertising and influencing knows that the Medium is the Message. We also know that Crazy Talk, Stupid … [Read more...] about Make Safety Personal, Another Meaningless Safety Slogan
You Can’t Predict the Unpredictable
Fresh off the presses in talking nonsense to people (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-experts-in-speaking-nonsense-to-people/ ), Safety revels in contradiction and nonsense. For example, that structure creates culture (https://safetyrisk.net/structure-does-not-create-culture/). It’s pretty simple in … [Read more...] about You Can’t Predict the Unpredictable
The Fallibility Factor
Isn’t it strange that we read everywhere in safety about ‘Human Factors’ but never about the Fallibility Factors. Fallibility is the character, status, quality, nature and the enduring permanence of being a human person. Fallibility is essential for learning and risk. Fallibility is the … [Read more...] about The Fallibility Factor
New Year Safety Trade-Offs and By-Products
New Year Safety Trade-Offs and By-Products Hassan Vally introduces us to the concept of ‘microlives’ (http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e8223) which attempts to measure the life value of directions taken in life. For example: every hour of TV on the couch adds up to 15 minutes off your life … [Read more...] about New Year Safety Trade-Offs and By-Products
Safety, Experts in Speaking Nonsense to People.
I get sent safety ‘goop’ every day and it’s hard to keep up with just how dumb this industry can get. The latest in the endless safety saga of speaking nonsense to people is this one (see Figure 1. Zero Harm in Our Lifetime). Figure 1. Zero Harm in Our Lifetime Of course, there can never be … [Read more...] about Safety, Experts in Speaking Nonsense to People.
The Myth of Certainty and Prediction in Risk
The myth of certainty proposes that life is knowable, predictable and manageable. Such certainty is not real but is believed and made true symbolically. This is what is observed in the use of the symbol of zero, the belief in the absolute and infinity, applied to fallible humans? The language of … [Read more...] about The Myth of Certainty and Prediction in Risk
