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1/ So I have a experience with big systems failing (a bug in my code took down the Pentagon, for example). Most of it can be summed up in one phrase: shit happens.
2/ There's two ways to deal with this:
a) let's try to stop shit from happening
b) let's learn to cope with shit happening
a) let's try to stop shit from happening
b) let's learn to cope with shit happening
3/ You need to do both, but "know nothings" in organizations tend to focus more on the first. You don't need to know much about a problem to say things like "we need to take shit more seriously".
4/ The less you know about a problem, the more you tend to choose "brittle" solutions to stopping shit from happening. In other words, a lot of shit happens comes from the steps used to stop it.
5/ I think Netflix's chaos monkey, that goes around crashing machines at random, is good example of learning to cope with shit rather than trying to prevent shit from happening.
