<aside> 🔥 Essay Beta Release: "Safe New World"
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Summary
It’s a dangerous world out there. Technological progress and increasing complexity constantly create new hazards. Our first line of defense is protocols, which I define as intentional patterns of constraint on human behavior. How do these patterns develop? Safe New World derives a theory of protocol evolution from historical improvements in workplace safety. The essay proposes answers to the origin of protocols, and what drives protocol selection – essential knowledge for those looking to apply the concept of protocols to solving real-world problems.
Importance
Workplace safety protocols have to navigate a seemingly endless series of challenges and biases and paradoxes and conflicts. People trade their longevity for short-term profit. It’s possible to make things too safe. We are easily fooled by randomness. Technology is unpredictable. Workers and employers have conflicting objectives. These forces affect the mutation and selection of protocols. Evolving protocols lead to highly improved safety outcomes. The fatality rate in the U.S. coal mining industry fell by 97% from 1900 to 2014.
Today and looking forward, many workers report incidents via smartphones and other smart devices. How has the introduction of communications technology helped or hindered workplace safety? What is the future trajectory for safety protocols? How are workers and employers managing new-age occupational diseases, like COPD, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, musculoskeletal issues, stress, and carpal tunnel syndrome?
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