That’s the unthinkable. Not the impossible. Not the fantastical. But the deeply, terrifyingly possible scenario we refuse to prepare for.
Consider a modern passenger jet. It is an engineering marvel of complexity. But that complexity means that a single sensor malfunction (as seen in the tragic crashes of the Boeing 737 Max) can override the pilot and doom the flight. As we add layers of technology and interconnectivity to our lives, we are inadvertently lowering the barrier for the unthinkable. We are increasing the likelihood of "cascading failures"—domino effects where one small push topples the entire structure. The Unthinkable
For decades, we have been taught to fear the "Black Swan"—a term popularized by statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb to describe an event that is an outlier, has an extreme impact, and is only explainable after the fact. It suggests that the unthinkable is inherently unpredictable. That’s the unthinkable
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most unthinkable things are not unlikely . They’re just unpracticed. But the deeply, terrifyingly possible scenario we refuse
When we label something "The Unthinkable," we are often engaging in a linguistic sleight of hand. We are taking a problem we do not want to solve and moving it into a category where we are not required to do anything about it. By calling a threat "unthinkable," we absolve ourselves of the responsibility to think about it.