TRUST AND TERROR: The Vulnerability of Complex Socio-technical Systems

摘要

A defining characteristic of contemporary civilization is how thoroughly life depends on the structure and proper functioning of numerous large-scale, complex artificial systems. Indeed our current way of living would be unthinkable were it not for powerful technologies in energy, transportation, communication, medicine, computing, water supply, food production, industrial production, and the like. So dependent have we become upon such things, so much are they part of our reality, that their presence is simply assumed, seldom questioned. For countries in the North, such dependency is welcomed with open arms because it seems crucial to prosperity and freedom. Large-scale, geographically extended technologies enable us to move about as we wish, to communicate freely and to be released from the urgent demands of day-to-day survival that confronted previous generations and that still threaten less prosperous nations around the globe. But now another, more troubling dimension of technological complexity demands attention. Dependency on complex technological systems looms as a source of vulnerability. If any major component within the systems that support modern life ceases to function for a significant period of time, our prosperity, freedom and comfortable lives are threatened.