Lethal Arrogance: Human Fallibility and Dangerous Technologies

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but Scholarship-lite
Review: Dumas has set about to doa little scaremongering and he has been successful. The book was written for mass-market appeal and, as such, he takes on a variety of complex technical systems. In so doing he has ignored the academic work of High Reliability Organizations scholars, who argue that at least some complex organizations do not fail, even under conditions of great uncertainty and stress. This seems to be a dumbed down version of Perrow's classic Normal Accidents, a book that touched off an entire debate about whether large socio-technical organizations are doomed to failure. Dumas is excellent in terms of getting your feet wet in this literature, but he shouldn't be taken as the end of the story. His work on nuclear weapons (broken arrows) is quite good (and scary) but the sections on cults and terrorist groups and mentally unstable technical workers is scholarship lite. The question of risky technology usage is an important one and, for that, the book is a good attempt at consciousness raising, but the Silent Spring of accident literature? I don't think so. It reads like a long magazine article for Maxim or Men's Health -- easy to follow and entertaining, but the academic substance seems to be missing. You might think he wrote the thing in a couple of months. Still, pick it up if you want an introduction to this field and something you can read on the beach at the same time. I'd give it two and a half stars if i could.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but Scholarship-lite
Review: Dumas has set about to doa little scaremongering and he has been successful. The book was written for mass-market appeal and, as such, he takes on a variety of complex technical systems. In so doing he has ignored the academic work of High Reliability Organizations scholars, who argue that at least some complex organizations do not fail, even under conditions of great uncertainty and stress. This seems to be a dumbed down version of Perrow's classic Normal Accidents, a book that touched off an entire debate about whether large socio-technical organizations are doomed to failure. Dumas is excellent in terms of getting your feet wet in this literature, but he shouldn't be taken as the end of the story. His work on nuclear weapons (broken arrows) is quite good (and scary) but the sections on cults and terrorist groups and mentally unstable technical workers is scholarship lite. The question of risky technology usage is an important one and, for that, the book is a good attempt at consciousness raising, but the Silent Spring of accident literature? I don't think so. It reads like a long magazine article for Maxim or Men's Health -- easy to follow and entertaining, but the academic substance seems to be missing. You might think he wrote the thing in a couple of months. Still, pick it up if you want an introduction to this field and something you can read on the beach at the same time. I'd give it two and a half stars if i could.

Rating:
Summary: Awakens us to our extraordinary capability
Review: Lethal Arrogance is the "Silent Spring" of the technological realm, particularly with regard to those technologies that can threaten great numbers of humans or property. Where Rachel Carson brought to our attention the potential harm we faced as a result of our polluting ways, Professor Lloyd Dumas cautions us that we also risk great harm due to the way we create and handle dangerous technologies. This book should help awaken us to our extraordinary capability to destroy ourselves, if we're not careful. Lethal Arrogance should not only be on the reading list of every American who is concerned about his or her well-being or that of future generations, but should also be read by every technological expert, politician, and particularly world leader. I think this is one of the most important books pertaining to our security and well-being on this planet since Silent Spring.

Rating:
Summary: Awakens us to our extraordinary capability
Review: Lethal Arrogance is the "Silent Spring" of the technological realm, particularly with regard to those technologies that can threaten great numbers of humans or property. Where Rachel Carson brought to our attention the potential harm we faced as a result of our polluting ways, Professor Lloyd Dumas cautions us that we also risk great harm due to the way we create and handle dangerous technologies. This book should help awaken us to our extraordinary capability to destroy ourselves, if we're not careful. Lethal Arrogance should not only be on the reading list of every American who is concerned about his or her well-being or that of future generations, but should also be read by every technological expert, politician, and particularly world leader. I think this is one of the most important books pertaining to our security and well-being on this planet since Silent Spring.

Rating:
Summary: In frightening complexity.
Review: This book approaches technology the way a real philosopher, like Schopenhauer, would approach metaphysics; as typically demonstating the results of whatever faith was instilled in the thinker as a small child. All of us had to learn that certain things work, and the bombs that we have built and paid for are the most outstanding example of how much faith we have been willing to invest in whatever works about nine times out of ten. I think I looked down in a hole once that must have been hiding one of the number ten, dud bombs, covered with a little loose dirt so I couldn't see what had made such a round hole going down in that dirt after a B-52 had flown over high in the air. If I tend to believe what this book says a bit more than the usual, highly skeptical reader or reviewer does, it might be because of that, or because I never really got to win a war or even call the shots. I liked the observations of this book about the inverse relationship of complexity and reliability most of all. Such empirically demonstrated observations ought to be the least political part of this book. Anything further I might say is in danger of being too political.