#517: What Big-Time Catastrophes Can Teach Us About How to Improve the Systems of Our Lives

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2019

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Whenever a financial or technological disaster takes place, people wonder if it could have possibly been averted. My guests today say that the answer is often yes, and that the lessons around why big disasters happen can teach us something about preventing catastrophes in our businesses and personal lives. Their names are Chris Clearfield and Andras Tilcsik, and they're the authors of Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It. We begin our discussion getting into how they got interested in exploring how everything from plane crashes to nuclear meltdowns to flash stock market crashes actually share common causes. We then discuss the difference between complicated and complex systems, why complex systems have weaknesses that make them vulnerable to failure, and how such complexity is on the rise in our modern, technological era. Along the way, Chris and Andras provide examples of complex systems that have crashed and burned, from the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor meltdown to a Starbucks social media campaign gone awry. We end our conversation digging into specific tactics engineers and organizations use to create stronger, more catastrophe-proof systems, and how regular folks can use these insights to help make their own lives run a bit more smoothly. Get the show notes at aom.is/meltdown.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	[♪ INTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪
0:07.4	Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.
0:11.3	Whenever a financial or technological disaster takes place, people wonder if it could have
0:15.2	possibly been averted.
0:16.5	I guess they said that the answers often yes, and that the lessons around why big disasters
0:20.6	happen can teach us something about preventing catastrophes in our businesses and in our
0:24.2	personal lives.
0:25.2	Their names are Chris Clearfield and on-dress Tiltcheck.
0:27.0	They're the authors of Meltdown, why our systems fail and what we can do about it.
0:30.7	We begin our discussion getting into how they got interested in exploring how everything
0:34.0	from playing crashes to nuclear meltdowns to flash-dark market crashes actually share
0:38.2	common causes.
0:39.2	We then discuss the difference between complicated and complex systems.
0:42.2	Why complex systems have weaknesses that make them vulnerable to failure and how such
0:45.7	complexity is on the rise in our modern technological era.
0:48.8	Along the way, Chris and Androsh provide examples of complex systems that have crashed
0:52.1	and burned from the three-mile island nuclear reactor meltdown to a Starbucks social media
0:56.4	campaign gone awry.
0:57.4	We enter conversation, digging into specific tactics, engineers and organizations used to
1:01.3	create stronger, more catastrophe-proof systems and how regular folks can use these insights
1:05.4	to help make their lives run a bit more smoothly.
1:08.1	After the show is over, check out our show notes at a-wim.is slash Meltdown.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Art of Manliness, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Art of Manliness and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.