I see with no surprise, Safety suggesting a re-think on mental health. Yet again, this confirms the simple reality that Safety loves to talk to itself about what it doesn’t know. If you want to know about Ethics, Culture or Anthropology, ask a safety engineer. Didn’t you know, if you need a source … [Read more...] about If You Want to Know About Mental Health, Don’t Ask Safety
HOP
Better Questions in Safety Require a Better Disposition to Persons
So much of what parades around safety focuses on Technique, what Ellul calls ‘the quest for efficiency’. The word is italicised to accentuate the difference between being technical and Ellul’s meaning. Everyone in safety ought to read his book The Technological Society (1964). Ellul was an amazing … [Read more...] about Better Questions in Safety Require a Better Disposition to Persons
New Rhetoric but Same Old Dynamics in HOP
We know that the 5 affirmations of HOP are not ‘truths’ as asserted by Conklin. Indeed, this echoes similar claims by Heinrich 90 years ago of ‘self-evident truths’ in safety. Whenever you read assertions like this in safety you know that what follows is NOT science but marketing. Just because … [Read more...] about New Rhetoric but Same Old Dynamics in HOP
Declaring What is By What Isn’t, HOP as Traditional Safety
One of the things Safety does best is declaring what is, by what isn’t and, when it comes to Safety, it seems believing one’s own lies is par for the course. I see this in HOP when reading Conklin’s book The 5 Principles of Human Organisational Performance. Of course, as in all traditional … [Read more...] about Declaring What is By What Isn’t, HOP as Traditional Safety
Quantum Systems and Operationalising SPoR
I was asked as a result of the last blog and Newsletter how Quantum Mechanics (https://safetyrisk.net/what-does-quantum-tell-safety/) affects risk and safety and, how to ‘operationalise’ a method accordingly. At the heart of Quantum is uncertainty, paradox and ambiguity … [Read more...] about Quantum Systems and Operationalising SPoR
Anger, Blame, Shame, Lament, Depression, Fallibility, Resilience and Self-Righteous Safety
One of the things Safety loves to do, is reduce a wicked problem down to a simplistic slogan. In this way it finds a simplistic answer to ‘fix’ a ‘wicked problem’ that cannot be ‘fixed’. This demonstrates the addiction of Safety to reductionism. We see this in the sloganistic and meaningless ‘just … [Read more...] about Anger, Blame, Shame, Lament, Depression, Fallibility, Resilience and Self-Righteous Safety
Zero is an Immoral Goal
I see that zero is now an innovation and a ‘science’, coming from the Safety Science Innovation Lab (https://safetyrisk.net/since-when-did-zero-become-a-science/). I also see the same old tired nonsense coming from the same Lab that there is no other moral goal than zero … [Read more...] about Zero is an Immoral Goal
What Do You Mean By Performance?
When we hear the word ‘performance’ what do we think of? Well, it depends. Language is contextual not propositional. If you want to know about language you need to know the context in order to understand how it is being used. For example, when we use the word ‘performance’ in the Arts, … [Read more...] about What Do You Mean By Performance?
