Customer Reviews

Mission Improbable: Using Fantasy Documents to Tame Disaster

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In this remarkable concise and readable booklet, Dr Clarke has one point which seems rather obvious in retrospect (as do many lucid observations: Organizations, when faced with controlling uncontrollable events, issue fantasy documents that solve problems that look similar to the problem at hand, but really aren't, upon closer inspection. These documents are rhetorical proclamations and serve the organization as such (staking knowledge domains, justifying expenditures, hidden agendas), communication between organizations(state, local, federal) and societal purposes (reassurance of populace). In Hungarian, this procedure is called constructing a popanz, a strawman argument. You will find no math in this book, no models, but plenty of socio-dynamic analysis. I enjoyed it very much ( except maybe for the somewhat non-standard definition of risk and uncertainty).

I think this book hits the nail right on the head. Dr. Clarke captures the essence of what so many fail to do and yet he does it with such insight and remarkable understanding from every conceivable angle. Highly recommended reading!