'Choices': Guaranteed small loss or a probable larger loss, injury or fatality?

[mi000ke]

Charles Perrow did research on catastrophic accidents ("Normal Accidents", Princeton University Press, 1999) that presents a complimentary framework. His major take-away is that big accidents are usually the result of a chain of very small and often imperceptible events that accumulate to a major accident or catastrophe. Each smaller event may not even be seen as a problem in isolation, but because of the "tight coupling" among those events and our inability to perceive the interrelationships among the various smaller problems, they accumulate to a catastrophic breakdown. K&T focus on our (in)ability to perceive the odds, while Perrow addresses the practical significance.

My take-away is that if I have one small and potentially manageable problem (say, e.g., my reg IP is creeping when I check it just before the dive as I always do), there may be other related small problems of which I am unaware (e.g., maybe the buddy I will rely on for air also has a nonobvious problem), and which could lead to a big problem. When I am not totally comfortable that I have absolutely no issues with a dive, I take the path of caution and thumb the dive.

As a side comment, K&T focus primarily on individual decision making, while Perrow focuses on the broader team/organization issues that accrue when everyone in your team or organization is operating under K&T assumptions, everyone has many potential points of failure, and those individuals and their equipment need to work together and coordinate/cooperate to achieve the goal - in this case a safe and successful dive.

In a similar vein, classic organizational strategic decision making assumes that your organization can make strategy in isolation of the other firms in your competitive arena, whereas game theory recognizes that the outcome of your organization's decisions depend on how your competitors react, and how your organization reacts to their reaction, and so on, and so on.

 

[GLOC]

Thanks Mi000ke, Perrow's book is a good read, although hard work!! Some great examples of systems' failures within which are equally applicable to diving too.

The first step is realising that we make these mistakes and how they come about - they aren't, as I described in a previous blog, an obvious smack in the face with something so obvious you couldn't miss it, because if it was, you genuinely wouldn't miss it!!

 

[TMHeimer]

Thanks for sharing. When I read the part about the coin toss I chuckled to myself. I used to play poker for a living so when I saw a chance to risk $100 to win $150 on a coin toss I though, "That is +EV, of course I'll take the flip!"

I'm trying to imagine someone turning down a coin toss like that and I just can't understand why someone would, let alone most people.

My wife's a top notch Holdem' player. She may say, "pot odds", take the coin flip. Then again, save for Aces & 8s, you probably won't die playing poker.