Reading Notes: Crash

Came across this book because of a suggested post, titled "Crash" and subtitled "Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It". The book The issues discussed seem to be huge, but in fact they are inseparable from everyone. Countless major disasters in contemporary society are often caused by some seemingly minor mistakes or mistakes. The author cites many familiar examples, such as the aviation industry. Several fatal accidents, the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the oil spill, the financial crisis, and even the wrong best picture Oscar. Although these "crashes" come from many different fields, there is a common core of essence, that is, the incomparably complex system plus The parts of the close reconciliation.

Whether it is an institution such as a government university or a large company, or a facility such as the Daba nuclear power plant, or even a public service such as aviation flight financial investment, they can be regarded as a system. In the past, the technology was not developed. In the 1990s, most of the tasks needed to be operated by humans and then communicated face-to-face, so the system was relatively simple and the connections between various departments were relatively loose. In the modern age where technology continues to improve and consultation is more and more developed, whether it is institutional operation or equipment maintenance are beginning to be built on a complex system, each person is only responsible for a small part of it and does not need to know the whole picture, but at the same time all parts are closely connected. The huge intertwined network greatly improves efficiency and convenience, but it also brings In order to increase the risk, as the so-called "one piece can affect the whole body", a small entry error by a technician can lead to astronomical losses in the entire trading market, and a small deviation in monitoring readings can cause the entire dam to burst. Worse The point is that many errors are so trivial in the overall complex system that they will not receive attention at all, and unless the entire system that caused the crash is examined and reflected, the detailed investigation report after each accident may not be much. improve.

The author mentions in the book that many problems in the system are usually first discovered not by the high-level executives with decision-making power, but by the grass-roots personnel who directly deal with specific projects, and the voices of these people are easily ignored in a large organization Yes. Maybe it's because they are reluctant to express opinions that don't agree with the team due to peer pressure, or maybe it's because the decision makers have established high authority that makes them afraid to ask questions that may upset the decision makers. Therefore, to make a large and complex The system operates as well as possible and establishes an effective error correction mechanism. First of all, it is necessary to create an open atmosphere, so that people at different levels can report possible deviations and doubts in a timely manner without any scruples, and the decision-making management should also soften Power thus encourages the expression of different voices. (Well, I can't help but think of the Covid-19 this time when I write here, which is another example where the bottom found that the problem was not resolved and eventually led to a huge disaster.) In addition, It is also helpful to make the circle as diverse as possible, if all the people making opinions and making decisions have the same background and the same expertise, they can easily reach consensus but often fall into the trap of stratospheric transitional confidence At this time, if there are a few outsiders with different backgrounds who can ask questions from different angles, even if they are not professional, many potential problems and even dangers may be discovered. Don't just rush forward, but stop and check if something went wrong, especially when you're nearing a goal or near the end of a project, people tend to focus on working hard and speeding up, not knowing what's wrong at this time Often the deadliest.

I consider myself to be conservative in many aspects, so I am always concerned about the universalization of electronic payment, face recognition, smart appliances, and various automations that replace traditional manual labor, such as autonomous driving, not to say that I am against new The promotion of technology, but I always feel that many things are pushed too fast, just like the retailer Target, which had an ambitious establishment of a large number of branches in Canada, it had to be sad because of serious losses less than two years later. Exit the Canadian market. In this era, everyone is pursuing maximizing efficiency, maximizing profits, maximizing convenience, and the complex and huge systems that facilitate all this are actually not as safe as we think. The probability of being far away is extremely low. Even if it happens, everyone will bear the consequences together, so it’s good to enjoy what’s in front of you. The open and diversified environment proposed by the author in the book and the error correction mechanism that stops and checks at the right time are not very advanced. But in reality it's more of a disaster that leaves nothing but a symbolic investigative report in the past until the next one, and each one is more devastating as full automation is networked.

"We can't grasp our existing world, so we construct a world we expect, then process information that matches the expected world, and find reasons to exclude information that might contradict it. When we construct the world's At times, unexpected or unlikely interactions are ignored."