A New Perspective for Risk Management: A Study of the Design of Generic Technology with a Matroid Model in C-K Theory - Principia Designae: Pre-Design, Design, and Post-Design - page 195

technology. Hence Eq. ( 13.3 ) is actually the brief for any generic concept given
a set of (subjectively) probable states of nature.
Let's underline some consequences of this concept for the relationship between
design space and “context” and for risk management:
1. Invariance. The new design space opened by d n+1 did not change the states of
nature—they are still invariants.
2. Independence. But this new design space is made independent of these states.
d n+1 creates a new relationship to the invariants.
3. Risk management. In this perspective, risk management does not consist in
reducing uncertainty (even if this track remains open and the reduction of uncer-
tainty also changes the design possibilities for d n+1 ). We have already noticed that
this design perspective does actually correspond to the design of generic technol-
ogies. But it would also be interesting in a lot of “controversies” situation (see the
twentieth century controversies on “smoking” or on “asbestos cancers” or today
the debates on potential danger of electromagnetic waves created by wifi and
mobile networks): usually these controversies are based on a logic of uncertainty
reduction (hence debates on the “proofs” of “cigarette's cancer” or “asbestos's
cancer”). In a design perspective, Eq. ( 13.3 ) leads to ask for the design of a concept
like “as much pleasure as cigarette but independent of any risk of cigarette'
cancer” or “as much fire protection as asbestos but independent of any risk of
asbestos cancer”. Note that it also opens a “design approach” for the “safety first”
principle: the safety first principle requires that a technological alternative is
chosen only if there is no risk; the default is that, with such a formulation, the
principle can only be applied to “known” solutions. A design perspective of
“safety first principle” actually leads the actor (for instance government, citizen
associations ... ) to ask for the study of concepts that would follow Eq. ( 13.3 ).
4. Creativity and system engineering synthesis. The design of independence is
actually at the root of a lot of engineering efforts. This is precisely what is
required by the first axiom of Axiomatic Design or by Taguchi quality princi-
ples. It helps also to understand a specific for of creativity in engineering design
synthesis: engineering design synthesis and creativity are often found contradic-
tory—creativity brings a new dimension or a new technique that doesn't fit with
existing systems and the synthesis rather consists in adapting the creative efforts
to all system constraints. A generic concept is actually a creative path to deal
with systems constraints by becoming independent of them! A generic concept
does not add constraints but rather suppress (some of) them.
In a more dynamic perspective, the generic concept leads to study differently the
states of nature:
1. Long term stability. Being independent of a large set of states of nature, one can
also consider that a generic technology is compatible with them. If over time the
probability of states evolve (this time in a “natural way”, not as a change in
the subjective probability), the generic technology will remain dominating.
In the case of raincoat-cap, even if global warming increases the probability of
sun, the raincoat-cap remains the best solution. In case of technologies and