Everyone's going on about how serious incidents (like Suez or the Texas blackouts) show that we're too reliant on complex systems. But these incidents are also the only way to build resilience in such systems. We need more of them, at far lower severityhttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/business/ship-suez-canal.html …
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The only complex system you should trust is one that breaks all the time, at all scales, and where those breakdowns are routine and the mitigation for it well developed. Never put your data on a server with ten years of uptime
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The human response to any functioning complex system is to pile on additional complexity until it breaks catastrophically. So a steady rate of breakdowns, big and small, is the only reassurance that you aren't piling up massive levels of risk somewhere
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None of these thoughts original (see
@nntaleb) but it's frustrating to watch stuff get turned into a morality play about overreliance on fragile networks, rather than about how to reduce that fragility while continuing to rely on them just fine3 replies 5 retweets 62 likesShow this thread -
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I think of relying on AWS like the 2008 financial crisis. Place so many eggs in one basket that no one can blame you individually when it all goes to hell.
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