[SystemSafety] Does "reliable" mean "safe" and or "secure" or neither?

[C. Michael Holloway]

Greetings,

I read this list regularly, but comment only rarely, and usually regret 
it when I do (for a wide variety of reasons, which are not relevant to 
enumerate here).  But this long, mostly tiresome thread has prompted me 
to write a short response, which will simply take the form of X 
propositions. I believe each of the propositions is true, but will not 
provide any arguments to support my belief because I don't have the time 
to do so.

P1: The association within certain communities of the word "reliability" 
to mean exclusively "statistical/probabilistic assessment/prediction" 
has significantly hindered communication with the public at large, and 
with other communities.

P2: When one person (call him Jack) hears another person (call her Jill) 
use a word W, Jack nearly always assumes that Jill's intended definition 
of W is the same definition that he would intend in the same sentence.

P3: Quite often the practical effect of P2 is that Jack and Jill end up 
in a quarrel, with each convinced the other is wrong / stupid / ignorant 
/ uninformed / pig-headed / ... .  (Rather than cooperating to fetch a 
pail of water, Jack and Jill throw water on one another.)

P4: Forcing another person to adopt your own personal style of 
argumentation, rather than adopting your style to match the other 
person's style, is probably rightly called a form of intellectual 
bullying.  Or at the very least, it is rightly called a lack of social 
skills.

-- 
cMh [ C. Michael Holloway | Senior Research Engineer | NASA Langley 
Research Center, MS 130, Hampton VA USA | Tel: +1.757.864.1701 ]

The words in this message are mine alone; neither blame nor credit NASA 
for them.

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