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Safety Racism

  It seems that the moment one invokes the word ‘safety’ all ethical considerations become unimportant. We see evidence of this with comments that Islanders are less safe, and less intelligent for safety! . How do people get away with this??? Of course safety is the industry of eugenics! (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-eugenics-and-the-engineering-of-risk-aversion/). Once the sacred word ‘safety’ …

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Looking Forward, Looking Back

  This cute little song by Slim Dusty lays out the ultimate challenge for Risk and Safety. So much of what characterizes Safety is about looking backward. Counting data, LTIs, TRIFR and counting lead indicators (positive activity) all focus on the past as if these are an indicator of the future. Most safety people I …

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Zero as Morally Wicked

  Ravetz in the foreword to Independent Thinking in an Uncertain World, A Mind of One’s Own  talks about ‘post-normal science’, ‘box-ticking culture’ and the ‘poverty of normal science’. He sets the scene for a conversation about the limits of the myth of objectivity and tackling some of the worlds most ‘wicked problems’. Of course …

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Emotions are not the Adversary

  There are many issues in which Safety takes no interest. Just look at safety conferences, journals and publications in risk and safety and you will find precious little about: ethics, politics, holistic ergonomics, consciousness, personhood, professionalization and critical thinking to name a few. Yet these are the topics and issues that are critical if …

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Tackling the Reality of Harm

  ‘Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life’. Genesis 3:17 How Safety defines hurt or harm is a huge issue for the industry. The monster of injury statistics now defined as safety has created a circus of linguistic gymnastics and …

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