or "The Risks we Knew We Were Taking... and The Ones We Didn't"
I know this is a long post, but there are some things that I want to put in writing about risk and responsibility, particularly for those of us who like working at the boundaries of disciplines.
Last weekend I spent a large percentage of my waking hours thinking about risk. Even before this , risk has been something that I often come back to dwell on. As an engineering professor I teach my students how to account for risk and to maximize the safety of their designs. As a writer, when I was researching, and writing, my book on "Making Makers," many of the makers that I interviewed discussed the role taking risks and assessing risk were critical elements of their childhoods and development. As a parent, keeping my children safe is one of my responsibilities.
This weekend, though, I had two specific risk topics on my mind: (1) my daughters' first trampoline lesson, and (2) the horrific Oakland fire.
Let's start with trampoline. It often surprises other academics to find out that my primary hobby is circus arts, particularly flying and static trapeze. "Isn't that too dangerous?" and " Isn't that risky?" are questions that I've been asked numerous times. That I let my daughters start flying trapeze at 6 and 7 years old also raises eyebrows. However, I specifically take them to a circus training school where I have inspected the equipment and discussed with the owner how she maintains it and trains her staff. My daughters and I fly in safety lines, coached by a trained staff, and land in a net. I am confident about the safety there. On the other hand, trampoline birthday parties have become all the rage in our neighborhood and I will admit that they scare me. I don't know the owners of the facilities and trampoline, done poorly, is a broken leg/neck waiting to happen. How did I come to peace with this? By signing my daughters up for a few trampoline classes, at the circus school, taught by a professional coach. They learned safety, and stretching, and etiquette. I now feel a bit better letting them go to trampoline park parties, but still do everything I can to be there with them or research the place first. Trampolines look accessible and easy, which is part of what makes them dangerous (to me.) As the parent, I take on the responsibility to make sue my kids learn how to do it safely.
And it's not just trampoline that can be risk. Everything we do has some level of risk associated with it. The cantaloupe you ate for breakfast might have listeria, the street you walk across might have a distracted driver turning onto it. The question isn't whether something has a risk (spoiler alert: it almost certainly does) but whether you are aware of that risk and what you do to mitigate it. For example, scrubbing the cantaloupe before you cut it and crossing at well lit corners when possible. The kids want to do trampoline? Let's learn how to do it safely.
On a related note, it's way too easy to accuse others of taking unnecessary risk, just because it is a risk that you wouldn't take. I remember on Halloween 2014 hearing the news of the tragic crash of Space Ship 2, and it's loss of life, as I was watching my own husband dress up as an astronaut to take our daughters trick or treating. My heart broke for the child whose dad, a real space traveler, wasn't coming home. And I fumed when I saw Wired quickly tweet and post an article titled "Space Tourism isn't Worth Dying For." I was appalled. The history of innovation is full of people knowingly taking risks as they work on new things. Space Ship 2 was no exception in my mind. I know many individuals who have travelled into space or who have taken submersible deep into the ocean. All of them knew the risks they were taking. I wrote a rebuttal to the Wired article here <and no, I didn't pick the title, the editor did>. Without brave individuals taking risks for science, politics, art, and engineering, the world would be a very different place. At the time, I wrote the following, and still stick by it:
"We should all be very cautious about deciding, for others, which endeavors are worth doing, or even dying for. What we should be concerned about is informed consent. The teams that undertake these endeavors must ensure that participants understand the risks, and should do everything in their power to protect those participants. Moreover, they must ensure people uninvolved with the project are kept safe."
My flying trapeze habit may seem reckless to others, but it's my choice. I feel informed about the risk, have signed the waivers, and have spent a lot of time discussing safety with my coaches.
However, I always have a nagging fear about the risks that I don't realize that I am taking. I remember years ago, going to a DIY festival while wearing one of my baby daughters in a sling. My companion for the festival was a trained chemist and at one point we were walking through a room when he grabbed me by the arm, spun me around, and quickly walked me out of the room. Why? He had seen numerous unsecured compressed gas canisters by one booth and was immediately concerned about how they were being handled. He knew the risks from his chemistry safety training and from working in many labs. I had seen the tanks and thought nothing of them. I didn't know, at the time, the risk that they posed. I was incredibly grateful for his sharing his knowledge with me, and I brought the concerns to the festivals organizers.
The other thing on my mind last weekend was the Oakland fire. While I didn't know any of the victims, I am watching a dear friend suffer the loss of three of his loved ones. It's heart wrenching. They were artists, teachers, musicians. Reading the bios of the dead, I more than once found myself thinking that I wish I had known them. And I also find myself wondering whether they were aware of the risk that they were taking that night at the Ghost Ship.
I don't want to go into specifics on the Oakland fire and the possible ways that it could have been avoided. I suspect this will be a long investigation and a lot of lessons will be learned. I wish they'd been in a safe venue, I wish there had been sprinklers, I wish they'd all gotten out. A fellow engineer made a comment to me about how he didn't understand why people had gone there, but when I showed him some of the pre-fire pictures on line his first comment was "How beautiful. I would have gone there." That comment makes me realize how many of my friends could have been in such a place, drawn by the community, beauty and music. I also have a sickening hunch that many of the people who went there went for the music and had no idea of the risk or the danger. That they took a deadly risk without realizing it.
It's the risks we take unknowingly that are often the scariest to me. When artists and others take on new projects or endeavors there are so many risks they are likely to take without realizing it. Think of the close calls in your makerspace or collective. I'm sure you've had some. We all have a responsibility to share our observations and knowledge. We should speak up whenever we see something we think is dangerous. I believe that we have an obligation to speak up. It is entirely possible that you are seeing something that others haven't seen or recognize.
In the past week I've seen a lot of excellent pieces posted about safety in communal art spaces. Read them. I don't know enough about the topic to post my own. That's why when I take on new projects I go to as many people as I can to get their thoughts on the safety. When I started the Squishy Circuits project I visited with over ten electrical engineers to get their opinions on the safety because I knew that they were more trained in circuits than I was. When I work with dance troupes on sets, I have manufacturers and structural engineers look at the plans.
I have been the annoying friend/parent/citizen who has pointed out things that looked unsafe to me at makerspaces, amusement parks, museums and festivals. I have no regrets about that. We have that obligation to our fellow humans.
Let's make beautiful art. Let's make wonderful communities. Let's do everything we can to keep each other safe.