Everyone knows the story of the Titanic. Big ship hits an iceberg, sinks, lots of people die. And the culprit, the focus of the story, is usually… “the iceberg”. That’s the part of this tragic tale that we remember. It’s a good story. Simple. An enormous piece of ice appears out of the darkness and destroys the greatest ship ever built.
You can make a movie out of that. Several, apparently. But a long series of stupid decisions is harder to put on a movie poster.
Truth be told, the blame falls squarely on… human error. Bad decisions at the top. From design to execution, those in charge doomed the passengers to their icy deaths. I mean, the iceberg was just being an iceberg. It wasn’t hiding behind a tree, or anything. It wasn’t plotting. It didn’t sneak out of the ocean at the last minute and yell, “Surprise!”
It was ice. In the North Atlantic. Go figure. The people running the ship knew ice existed. They knew ships could sink. They knew something could go wrong because something can always go wrong. That’s why we have lifeboats. Or, in this case, why we should have had more of them.
You see, that’s the way it usually works. Those at the top make poor decisions out of greed or lack of wisdom; and these decisions trickle down to the rest of us. The designers of the Titanic, the engineers, the business managers, the investors, thought “I know what I’m doing, we don’t need too many lifeboats. What could possibly go wrong”? And I’m sure all of the decisions sounded reasonable when they were made. Lifeboats take up space. Space costs money. And lifeboats are bad optics. They don’t inspire confidence. Besides, the ship is unsinkable. So why waste money preparing for something that can’t happen?
No problem here.
Then, later on, the people who weren’t at all involved in the decisions get to discover the small flaw in the reasoning. Oops.
Unfortunatly, the people who make the decisions and the people who live with the consequences of those decisions are rarely the same people. Which probably makes it easier to make the decisions in the first place.
Of course, I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. No calloused indifference, certainly.
And isn’t this the same sort of pattern we see playing out in our world today; from politicians to corporate leaders. Isn’t this the same distancing between decision and consequence we’ve seen since the beginning of civilization? Leaders making decisions that are good for those insulated from the outcomes. Never mind everyone else.
“We know what we’re doing, after all. What could possibly go wrong?”
And we believe them. Or we pretend to believe them. Or we’re too apathetic to care. I’m not sure which is worse.
We give them titles and put them in large offices. Then we let them hire people to explain why their bad decisions were actually good decisions that were misunderstood by the people harmed by them. Then we elect them again. Or give them a bonus.
So, I suppose we’re part of the problem. And that’s unfortunate.
I mean…
Clean water? Who needs that. Clean air? Safe food? Good healthcare? Good education? Responsible economic policy? We don’t need those things. We know what we’re doing.
Warning signs? Those are conspiracies. It’ll be fine. And if it isn’t, the people who made the decisions will simply form a committee to find out why no one saw it coming. But someone always saw it coming. That’s the other bizarre thing about all this. These disasters are almost never surprises. Someone warned them. Usually a lot of people warned them. Engineers. Scientists. Workers. People who actually knew how the thing worked. But the warnings were inconvenient. The kinds of warnings that cost money usually are.
At least for a while.
Besides, what could possibly go wrong?
Then the water starts coming in. And suddenly everyone is very concerned. Speeches are made. Investigations are launched. The people in charge assure us that this is no time to place blame. Which is an interesting thing for the people responsible to say.
No, this is a time for unity. A time for everyone to pull together… especially those of us without a lifeboat.
You see, the problem isn’t really the iceberg. It’s poor planning. So, I hope you have an inflatable raft. Because someone should have a plan in case this ship sinks.
