Foolproof : why safety can be dangerous and how danger makes us safe / Greg Ip.

By: Ip, Greg, 1964- [author.]Material type: TextTextPublisher: London : Headline, 2015Copyright date: ©2015Description: 326 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type: text | still image Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9781472214188; 9781472214171Subject(s): Risk management | Life skills -- Safety measures | Danger perception | EconomicsDDC classification: 338.5
Contents:
Progressives, engineers, and ecologists -- "Please, God, not in my district": before the economy could destroy itself, first Paul Volcker had to save it -- Now is the time to panic: what to do when safety fails -- More risk, please: the unintended consequences of football helmets and antilock brakes -- The trouble with savings: from gold standard to euro -- Unnatural disaster: the high cost of taming Mother Nature -- Good risk, bad risk: balancing safety with disaster -- The rescuer's dilemma: chaos today or chaos tomorrow? -- The price of peace of mind: why insurance protects us from small disasters but not big ones -- "If you think you are dangerous, you are safe": why airplanes hardly ever crash -- A foolproofer's handbook: how to make the most of our best instincts.
Summary: We have learned a staggering amount about human nature and disaster -- yet we keep having car crashes, floods, and financial crises. Partly this is because the success we have at making life safer enables us to take bigger risks. As our cities, transport systems, and financial markets become more interconnected and complex, so does the potential for catastrophe. How do we stay safe? Should we? What if our attempts are exposing us even more to the very risks we are avoiding? Would acceptance of danger make us more secure? Is there such a thing as foolproof?
Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.
Star ratings
    Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Status Date due Barcode
wnor- Book Northam
Northam Adult Nonfiction 		338.5 IPG (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 31111064941519

Includes bibliographical references (pages 285-312) and index.

Progressives, engineers, and ecologists -- "Please, God, not in my district": before the economy could destroy itself, first Paul Volcker had to save it -- Now is the time to panic: what to do when safety fails -- More risk, please: the unintended consequences of football helmets and antilock brakes -- The trouble with savings: from gold standard to euro -- Unnatural disaster: the high cost of taming Mother Nature -- Good risk, bad risk: balancing safety with disaster -- The rescuer's dilemma: chaos today or chaos tomorrow? -- The price of peace of mind: why insurance protects us from small disasters but not big ones -- "If you think you are dangerous, you are safe": why airplanes hardly ever crash -- A foolproofer's handbook: how to make the most of our best instincts.

We have learned a staggering amount about human nature and disaster -- yet we keep having car crashes, floods, and financial crises. Partly this is because the success we have at making life safer enables us to take bigger risks. As our cities, transport systems, and financial markets become more interconnected and complex, so does the potential for catastrophe. How do we stay safe? Should we? What if our attempts are exposing us even more to the very risks we are avoiding? Would acceptance of danger make us more secure? Is there such a thing as foolproof?

There are no comments on this title.

to post a comment.