The ethical dilemmas of risky decisions

Even in a pandemic there seem to be inherent conflicts of interest between the individual and societal consequences of remedial actions and strategies. Actions taken in the sole interests of patients, as required by the Hippocratic oath, can have broadly inconvenient economic implications for the State. (“Average” benefits for a population can...

Living with legacy risk—the limits of practicalities?

Legacy risks from infrastructures and industrial installations often reveal themselves when a potential for failure has been discovered much later than at the stage of the design and construction of a structure. In which case, there might already be a problem with the legacy installation, or even a crisis, without having had an accident. When...

Prevention, precaution and resilience: Are they worth the cost?

The assumption that risk, represented as an expected value of the loss could be implied to be a measure of safety, in a cost benefit analysis, is firmly entrenched in economic risk analysis. However, this does not mean that without a marker, the value of a loss, can be established with any necessary level of certainty to make such a cost...

Dragons, black swans and decisions

Since Nassim Taleb coined black swan as an event that occurred as a complete surprise for everybody, the metaphor of the black swan has been applied to a much wider variety of events. Black swan events now comprise events that are a surprise for some but not for others, events that have a low likelihood, events that were not believed to be...

Variability: Threat or Curse?

In the philosophy of SAFETY-I variability is seen as a threat, because it brings with it the possibility of an unwanted outcome. Variability of hardware is curtailed by, amongst other things, precise specifications. Variability of human behavior is curtailed by inter alia regulations and protocols. In the philosophy of SAFETY-II variability is...

Is there a statistical value of a life?

In making decisions, rationality is often equated to economic rationality. This means that in every decision, the benefits should outweigh the costs, when both are expressed in monetary terms. Balancing of cost and benefits through monetary Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA), which is used more and more widely in health and safety decision-making,...

Research needs for improved dam safety risk management of internal erosion: (Abstract)