> So I am not convinced that there need to be "at least ten alternatives" to be fail safe as society.
The required number "N for safety" is a good discussion to have. Risk-Return, Cost-Benefit etc are essential considerations. We live in the real world with finite resources and stark choices. But I would argue (without trying to be facetious) that they are risk management 102 type considerations.
Why? Because they must rely on the pretense of knowledge [1]. As digitization keeps expanding to encompass basically everything we do, the system becomes exceedingly complex, nobody has a good picture of all internal or external vulnerabilities and how much they might cascade inside an interconnected system.
Assessing cost versus benefit implies one can reasonably quantify all sides of the equation. In the absence of a demonstrably valid model of the "system" the prudent thing is to favor detail-agnostic rules of thumb. If these rules suggest that reducing unsafe levels of concentration is not economically viable there must be something wrong with the conceptual business model of digitization as it is now pursued.
The required number "N for safety" is a good discussion to have. Risk-Return, Cost-Benefit etc are essential considerations. We live in the real world with finite resources and stark choices. But I would argue (without trying to be facetious) that they are risk management 102 type considerations.
Why? Because they must rely on the pretense of knowledge [1]. As digitization keeps expanding to encompass basically everything we do, the system becomes exceedingly complex, nobody has a good picture of all internal or external vulnerabilities and how much they might cascade inside an interconnected system.
Assessing cost versus benefit implies one can reasonably quantify all sides of the equation. In the absence of a demonstrably valid model of the "system" the prudent thing is to favor detail-agnostic rules of thumb. If these rules suggest that reducing unsafe levels of concentration is not economically viable there must be something wrong with the conceptual business model of digitization as it is now pursued.
[1] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1974/hay...