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Messages from "Economic Trend", October 2007

There Is No Such Thing as Perfect Safety

Yoji OHASHI
Vice Chairman of the Board of Councillors, Nippon Keidanren
Chairman of the Board, All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd.

In a book I once read there was an interesting theory: a scholar proposed that, in terms of the 24-hour clock, if the Earth, which is 4.6 billion years old now, was born at midnight and it is now noon, then human beings appeared at 11:59:41 a.m. If this is true, then human beings have made rapid progress during only 19 seconds, inventing incredible machines and technology for the benefit of society, to improve convenience and safety for us all. On the other hand, however, it is said that the human brain, which controls the intellect, the emotions, and is the seat of free will, stopped its evolution as long as 100,000 years ago.

Since this spring, I have noted various incidents that have disrupted customers up and down Japan. These include aircraft trouble, system failures at airports, and typhoons and earthquakes. Such incidents have led me to think that, in this contemporary age, human beings are too accustomed to relying on the convenience of technology to assure safety and high performance. Although we are blessed with the five senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell -- and I would like to add a sixth, that of intuition -- we are becoming dull to the importance of predicting and avoiding risks using our intuition or sixth sense.

In safety theory, and indeed, this is very true, it is said that overconfidence in safety and too much emphasis on convenience make us insensitive to risks. Safety is not something that can be treated superficially. We must continually ask the questions, "Is there anything abnormal?" or "What should we do in case of any abnormality?" in the course of our daily lives without becoming too complacent. We must always be sensitive to everything around us, including the movement of clouds, wind flows, the activities of animals and plants, and people's attitude and behavior, while carefully monitoring and listening to information coming to us from all over the world.

It is obviously of utmost importance to take prompt and appropriate action in the event of risk, but it is also significant to always remain aware of the necessity of strengthening our ability to predict and avoid risk, too.


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