Eric Schlosser Quotes
Complex systems work until the day that they don’t work.
The thing that make this an even more difficult problem to deal with is that until the failure, enthusiasts and supports of the technology point to the perfect track record to justify continued use, opposing even more safety measure, and trying to reduce anxiety.
Eric Schlosser, Investigative Reporter, WAMU, The Dianne Rehm Show, September 17, 2013
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Explaining the origin of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster:
member of Parliament belonging to no political party
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
He made this quotation in a discussion about nuclear weapons, but the principle is valid for many areas from the Internet to pharmaceuticals. In the nuclear weapons case there have been a number of accidents – including fatal ones – over the years and on several occasions a nuclear weapon came close to detonating near populated areas. In one case, radiation damage from a crash of a nuclear weapons equipped bomber have made an area in Spain unusable for years into the future.
Also published in What Do You Care What Other People Think, 1988. This was his last publication. He realized that NASA was under so much political and public relations pressure, that important science issues could not be faced squarely. So he wrote his own appendix to the report which was embarrassing to some of the administrators and contractors but was really appreciated by almost all of the scientists and engineers.
Eric Matthew Schlosser is an American journalist and author known for his investigative journalism, such as in his books Fast Food Nation (2001), Reefer Madness (2003), and Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (2013).
