Complex Systems Won’t Survive the Competence Crisis
&gt; The resulting norms have steadily eroded institutional competency, causing America’s complex systems to fail with increasing regularity.<p>Really? As fewer people than ever are dying in plane crashes. Medical malpractice claims are declining. There are far fewer errors in banking, communications, convictions, far fewer deaths in fires (and fires in general). There are certainly some things getting worse such as homelessness and drug addiction, but most things have dramatically improved over the past generation.<p>It is great to have anecdotes, but you need to demonstrate that reliability is declining in some numerical way, as &quot;increasing regularity&quot; is by definition somehow numerical.<p>&gt; Following three completely avoidable collisions of U.S. Navy warships in 2017 and a fire in 2020 that resulted in the scuttling of USS Bonhomme Richard<p>The US Navy has a pretty lengthy record of hitting things, losing boats to stupid, and killing its sailors for want of training.<p>Is it all that unusual for the US armed forces to lose dozens of people in accidents a year? Admittedly anecdotal from Wikipedia reading, but it doesn&#x27;t seem to be so.<p>&gt; Recently, the tremendous U.S. record for air safety established since the 1970s has been fraying at the edges.<p>A bunch of people have died due to ATC failures between now and the 1970s.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;2005_Logan_Airport_runway_incu" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;2005_Logan_Airport_runway_incu</a>...<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;United_Express_Flight_2415" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;United_Express_Flight_2415</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Los_Angeles_runway_disaster" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Los_Angeles_runway_disaster</a><p>It is obviously not good that these incidents have happened, but they are not exactly new. The &quot;tremendous record for air safety&quot; still has a lot of bodies attached to it.<p>&gt; Shortly after releasing the 737 MAX, 346 people died in two nearly identical 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.<p>Exactly as many people died when McDonnell Douglas (the real predecessor to Boeing in terms of organizational culture) cut corners on cargo doors. Boeing corporate ethical challenges are not new if you consider MD.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Turkish_Airlines_Flight_981" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Turkish_Airlines_Flight_981</a><p>Airline manufacturers killing people due to being sloppy is not new. They are arguably killing the fewest flyers per capita in history.<p>&gt; The modern U.S. is a system of systems interacting together in intricate ways. All these complex systems are simply assumed to work. In February of 2021, cold weather in Texas caused shutdowns at unwinterized natural gas power plants. The failure rippled through the systems with interlocking dependencies. As a result, 246 people died. In straightforward work, declining competency means that things happen more slowly, and products are lower quality or more expensive.<p>That is not lack of competency at all. That is a deliberate choice by Texas to not spend extra money on a resilient system. They deliberately keep their grid disconnected from the rest of the USA so they do not need to comply with Federal standards. Texas is well aware of the issues. They just prefer the free market with cheap power.