Fri 6 Jun 2008
The Bomb
Posted by admin under Uncategorized
When a plane carrying live nuclear weapons turns out to be an air force mistake, you know there’s a problem. And the resignation of top executives is understandable. But according to Stanford professor emeritus Martin Hellman there’s another nuclear problem brewing, with even more dire consequences—and it’s all about the fact the we don’t recognize that the problem even exits.
According to Hellman, it’s all about our government’s commitment to the status quo. We operate under the premise that nothing will go wrong because there hasn’t been a huge disaster.
Reminds us of the general attitude about terrorism prior to 9/11. It’s difficult to take a risk seriously if everything in the present seems fine.
But Hellman offers a solution: run an objective risk analysis and take necessary action based on actual evidence. It’s all about being proactive instead of staying committed to a policy just because it hasn’t broken down yet.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
For an excellent coverage of this topic see Scott D. Sagan’s “The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons.”
Sagan looks at the history of US nuclear weapons safety from the viewpoint of Charles Perrow’s Normal Accident Theory and Karl Weick’s High Reliability Organization Theory.
Sagan’s conclusion is that we’ve been very lucky.
September 19th, 2008 at 11:39 am
I just saw Lynn Cheney tout this the other day on TV. In response to criticism of GW, she said something like, “well, he has kept us safe since 9/11″. The problem is, MOST people will buy that without any further objective analysis and/or cost benefit analysis.