On building a resilient society

It often seems to me that the sort of things that engineers need to take into account when building systems are the same sort of things that politicians need to take into account - but often don't - when it comes to building societies. Below is a brief excerpt from Jesse Robbins in Resilience Engineering: Learning to Embrace Failure. It's a statement on engineering software systems, but a point that applies far more broadly:

More than anything else, I've learned that the key to building resilient systems is accepting that failure happens. There's just no getting around it. ... It's only after you've accepted the reality that failure is inevitable that you can begin the journey toward a truly resilient system.

A truly resilient system or a truly resilient society would seem to be one that handles problems proportionately. That's something that politicians seldom seem to do nor do those voting for them, yet people tend to fail in some fairly predictable ways.

Think of some categories of needless and senseless deaths like the 2170 additional deaths resulting from people switching from flying to driving in the wake of 9/11. Yes, there's a real risk of dying when you set foot on a plane - one that tends to resonate with people. Yet there's also the risk of dying when you set foot in a car, or in proximity to a car or due to obesity or other health issues from avoiding exercise due to fear of cars. We need to try to grapple with all risks - not just a select few.