From the Editor's Desk

Don’t Look Up

Abstract

The Academy Award-nominated movie Don’t Look Up is about a group of astronomers who discover a comet on a collision course with Earth. The scientists determine the impending event will destroy all life on the planet and report this finding to the proper authorities, including the President. Yet most of the authorities and the media remain indifferent to this information.

I have discussed this film with people who work in system safety and risk management, and have found that some are reminded of events that have actually happened. Of course, these actual experiences did not involve events quite as serious as a comet collision with Earth, but they were serious potential events with clear mechanisms of occurrence. The variability of reactions of people to potentially high-risk events is an interesting area of research that I hope International System Safety Society (ISSS) members will pursue in the future.