[SystemSafety] Floods and Electrics

[Martyn Thomas]

On 05/01/2016 06:27, Matthew Squair wrote:
> I'm reading a book by Tavris and Aronson called 'Mistakes were made
> (but not by me)' at the moment. Their central thesis is that reducing
> cognitive dissonance is a major driver in human behavior and that the
> mental gymnastics of self justification we use to achieve such
> minimisation go a long way to explaining how we persist in (very) bad
> decisions. The bigger the investment the stronger the effect of course
> and the less likely folk are to admit that they're wrong. 
>
> There are obvious implications for investment decisions in flood
> control measures (or other hazard controls) as well as why people seem
> to discount risks such as flood, bushfire, earthquake and landslide.

This may also explain why most software developers still believe that
"test and fix" is preferable to "correct by construction".

Martyn
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