Why Safety Can Be Dangerous: A Conversation with Gregory Ip
Wall Street Journal commentator Gregory Ip to discusses his latest book, which looks at the trade-offs between risk and stability.
Overview
Public Engagement in an Age of Complexity, a project of the Science & Technology Innovation Program, is proud to welcome Gregory Ip to discuss his latest book, Foolproof: Why Safety Can Be Dangerous and How Danger Makes Us Safe (Little, Brown).
In Foolproof, Ip looks at how we often force new, unexpected risks to develop in unexpected places as we seek to minimize risk from crises like financial downturns and natural disasters. This is a phenomenon only likely to increase as our financial systems and cities become more complex and interconnected, but Ip concludes that these crises actually benefit society.
“We can make disaster and crisis less frequent and more survivable, but we won’t end either,’ IP writes in Foolproof. “Nor should we want to. Periodic crisis is the price we pay for an economic system that encourages, and rewards, risk. Periodic disasters are the price we pay for situating our cities in desirable, productive places. The right trade-off between risk and stability will maximize the units of innovation we get per unit of instability.”
Ip is the chief economics commentator of The Wall Street Journal, covering U.S. and international economics in the newspaper’s Capital Account column and on its Real Time Economics blog. Before joining the Journal, Ip was the U.S. Economics Editor for The Economist from 2008 to 2015. From 1996 to 2008, he was a reporter in Washington and New York for the Journal. He also wrote The Little Book of Economics: How the Economy Works in the Real World (Wiley). Ip received a bachelor’s degree in economics and journalism from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario.
Foolproof: Why Safety Can Be Dangerous and How Danger Makes Us Safe comes out Oct. 13. Copies of the book will be available for sale at the event.
David Rejeski, director of the Science & Technology Innovation Program at the Wilson Center, will lead the discussion, which will include time for audience questions.
For more information or press inquiries, please contact Aaron Lovell at (202) 691-4320 or aaron.lovell@wilsoncenter.org
More information about Public Engagement in an Age of Complexity can be found here: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/public-engagement-age-complexity
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Science and Technology Innovation Program
The Science and Technology Innovation Program (STIP) serves as the bridge between technologists, policymakers, industry, and global stakeholders. Read more
Global Risk and Resilience Program
The Global Risk and Resilience Program (GRRP) seeks to support the development of inclusive, resilient networks in local communities facing global change. By providing a platform for sharing lessons, mapping knowledge, and linking people and ideas, GRRP and its affiliated programs empower policymakers, practitioners, and community members to participate in the global dialogue on sustainability and resilience. Empowered communities are better able to develop flexible, diverse, and equitable networks of resilience that can improve their health, preserve their natural resources, and build peace between people in a changing world. Read more
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