Generalized safety

Safety is foundation of human civilization, which is an unavoidable topic for us.

On the concept of safety there is not a unified definition. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary defines safety is “freedom from harm or danger: the state of being safe”. And Wikipedia defines safety is “the state of being safe, the condition of being protected against physical, social, spiritual, financial, political, emotional, occupational, psychological, educational or other types or consequences of failure, damage, error, accidents, harm or any other event which could be considered non-desirable”. Basing on the existed definition of the concept of safety above, I think a good supplement is that Safety also is a state, namely, keep the loss and threaten of people, organizations, assets and environments being reduced and controlled.

The concept of safety is used in the different fields. For example, marine engineer focuses on the safety of the ship on the field of industrial safety. However, government mainly focuses on the safety of society on the field of political security, military security, social security etc. The narrow sense of safety refers to a particular field safety, such as industrial safety, economic security. Generalized on safety is the union of public safety and individual safety. Further, the definition of Generalized safety is a state, namely, keep the loss and threaten of all people, organizations, assets and environments being reduced and controlled in all fields, i.e. both in public safety field and individual safety field.

The relationship between the Generalized safety and human security: The UNDP's 1994 Human development Report's definition of human security argues that the scope of global security should be expanded to include threats in seven areas: economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security and political security. Obviously, the extension of Generalized safety is grander concept than human security. However, human security is a closed concept to Generalized safety which accepted by public.

The relationship between the Generalized safety and systemic risk: systemic risk is the risk of breakdowns in an entire system, as opposed to breakdowns in individual parts and components in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks report 2014. Systemic risk includes the characteristics of “modest tipping points combining indirectly to produce large failures”, “risk-sharing or contagion, as one loss triggers a chain of others” and “systems being unable to recover equilibrium after a shock”. Although systemic risk is the biggest kind of threat to Generalized safety, there are many kinds of non-systemic risk also harmful. Even so, systemic risk is a valuable reference for understanding Generalized safety.

There is no recognized evaluation method to Generalized safety. As an imperfect substitute, Global Risks report published by the World Economic Forum every year could be regarded as an important reference.

Readings

 * 1) Read Generalized safety.
 * 2) Read safety.
 * 3) Read Human development (humanity).
 * 4) Read Global Risks Report.
 * 5) Read Amartya Sen.
 * 6) Read Information technology.
 * 7) Read Global brain.

Key Terms

 * Safety
 * Development
 * Generalized safety
 * Generalized development
 * Security mechanism
 * Information technology