[SystemSafety] Shark!

Thu Jul 9 02:11:28 CEST 2015

Chris

RE your comment:

" Safety is based on maths. 

People and films  OTOH are emotive. "

This introduces an interesting philosophical point. 

My view is that, although the analysis of safety might be based on maths the
ultimate decisions to make something safe, or safe - er, or that something
is safe enough, are made by human beings and are therefore based on emotion.
Mathematical analysis is akin to peeing in your pants. It might give you a
warm feeling but it never carries the day on its own. Hence my ongoing
campaign to get more study of human emotions injected into engineering
education. I think there is general agreement that systems are an
integration of hardware, software and fleshware. But we continue to graduate
engineers who have no formal training in, or knowledge of, the human
condition.

Case study: a university professor who thinks he has solved a well
recognised fault in air traffic control voice directives to pilots with a
regular expression.

Further, regarding your mention of the phenomena where people mistake movie
plots for reality; you are absolutely correct, it's a routine occurrence.
And I totally agree with where you're going with this. Hollywood makes
billions out of the human need to be fed information through stories.
Functional safety engineers can also turn this to their advantage in helping
people to make better emotional decisions about safety. 

One aspect of story that we can make better use of every day is metaphor.
Metaphor is a simplifying tool. Large and complex problems can be explained
simply with metaphor. With the classic insight of the poet, Robert Frost
once defined metaphor beautifully: "... Metaphor is explaining this in terms
of that where this is new and that is familiar".

 One of the classic lines that came out of the movie Jaws - when the boat
hunting the shark was attacked by the massive mechanical great white, Bruce
- was, "you're going to need a bigger boat". Abstracted and projected onto
the functional safety discipline this is a compelling metaphor for
convincing management to spend more money on safety subsequent to a major
incident or near miss. 

The movie Apocalypse Now had another great boat metaphor:

(the back story: on a passage upper a river a decision is made to go ashore
and search the jungle for mangoes. In the process they meet a tiger.) 

The resulting wisdom, most profound:

"Never get out of the boat." Absolutely goddamn right! Unless you were goin'
all the way... Kurtz got off the boat. He split from the whole fuckin'
program."

I'll leave that one for the list to ponder on.

Cheers

Les

From: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of
Chris Hills
Sent: Wednesday, July 8, 2015 9:21 PM
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Shark!

Safety is based on maths. 

People and films  OTOH are emotive. 

After 9/11 many Americans would not fly the Atlantic for a while despite the
attacks being staged  from US domestic flights.

After the Liam Neeson Film "Taken"  (about 2 US students being abducted in
Paris) large numbers of  US students, or more probably their parents on
their behalf, decided not to do a European Trip. 

Films are designed to play on fears and emotions also the suspension of
disbelief.   The problem is that people often believe films over history.
(Saving Private Ryan for example). No matter how many charts and sensible
articles you write about sharks "they have seen what a Great White can do to
a boat.." 

I am sure that if you got a Hollywood team to do a film you could worry
people about chair safety.. Though I am not sure how you would work in the
obligatory car chase. 

Regards

   Chris 

 Eur Ing Chris Hills BSc CEng MIET MBCS FRGS FRSA 
Phaedrus Systems Ltd Tel:   FREEphone 0808 1800 358
96 Brambling B77 5PG          Vat GB860621831  Co Reg #04120771
Http://www.phaedsys.com <http://www.phaedsys.com/>   chills at phaedsys.com 

From: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of
Inge, James Mr
Sent: 08 July 2015 09:43
To: 'systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de'
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Shark!

My local zoo has a poster in its aquarium, quoting a statistic about fatal
shark attacks, compared to deaths caused by chairs.  I can't remember the
precise numbers, but it is something like half a dozen shark related deaths
annually, compared to hundreds caused by homicidal furniture.  The
International Shark Attack File quotes 497  confirmed fatal shark attacks
worldwide, over the last 435 years.

Now that Hollywood has successfully warned the world about sharks, how can
we persuade them to do such a sterling effort to get the word out about
seating? ;-)

More fun shark attack statistics at
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/isaf/geomaps.htm 

                James.

From: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of
Les Chambers
Sent: 08 July 2015 06:28
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: [SystemSafety] Shark!

Tis the 40th anniversary of the movie Jaws. The script writer is giving
interviews. It turns out the movie made many people shark-risk-aware. Some
didn't go near a swimming pool for years after. But one comment resonated.
Words to the effect of: 

"Why did those victims go into the water? Couldn't they hear the music?"

More support for the fundamental axiom of hazard analysis:

"Some things only become clear, later on."

Cheers

Les

-------------------------------------------------
Les Chambers
Director
Chambers & Associates Pty Ltd
www.chambers.com.au

Blog: www.systemsengineeringblog.com
<http://www.systemsengineeringblog.com/> 

Twitter: @ChambersLes <http://www.twitter.com/chambersles> 
M: 0412 648 992
Intl M: +61 412 648 992
Ph: +61 7 3870 4199
Fax: +61 7 3870 4220
les at chambers.com.au
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