What are the ‘Blessings of Disaster’?

Us.

“The Blessings of Disaster” is the very real story of our relationship with disasters and how it could provide insights on our future as a civilization — with enough arguments to tickle both optimists and pessimists alike. It brings together and connects knowledge from many disciplines to paint a global picture, it provides facts to assess the significance of it all, and it does so in bright colors to keep the reader’s mind focused.

As a minimum, all 370,114 students and the 50,000-plus faculty and employees affiliated with SUNY, their parents, their grandparents, their kids and grandkids — and the whole neighborhood. First and foremost because the book is entertaining and will appeal to individuals from all backgrounds and disciplines, and second because everybody should be aware of the complex factors that make it so difficult for society to prepare against disasters, and of the patterns of human nature and technology that will ensure that these disasters will (or will not) repeat themselves, because it is these same factors and patterns that will dictate how the world will face its multiple existential threats. This is particularly important for the current generation of students who are “on deck” to tackle these threats and to create a better future. 

“The Blessings of Disaster” takes a unique, overarching approach from the angle of disasters and existential threats, and makes it a journey to explore multiple facets of human nature and society in a manner that is informative and entertaining for a general audience. At the same time, the book has enough thought-provoking and debate-igniting ideas for engineers, scientists and other experts from many disciplines to also have a blast reading it. Disasters are nothing but the end-product of human nature, and the book provides a thorough overview of the global and multidimensional aspects of the problem from that perspective. Besides, only “The Blessings of Disaster” successfully connects natural disasters, silent heroes, crooks, cows, hijackers, “The Three Little Pigs,” nuclear holocaust, movie reviews, viruses, scapegoats, trading stamps, real estate agents, Chinese hockey sticks, airport proctologists, and many more, into a coherent narrative.

Nobel prize winner Niels Henrik David Bohr said, “some subjects are so serious that one can only joke about them.” Besides, aren’t most pills sugarcoated?

The answer is an enthusiastic “it depends.” After all, disasters are 100% human creations, so some things never change, and some do.

Examples of disasters in the current context include destruction caused by earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, volcanoes, floods, technological failures, terrorist attacks, and other similar large-scale events (having a bad day at the office, no matter how “disastrous,” does not count here). Keep in mind that most hazards will not create disasters — if we are not there. This is sort of like the metaphysical question, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” — but with disasters instead. It is in fact the very infrastructure that we built to protect us from the environment that collapses and kills us during earthquakes, tornadoes, and so on.

A pandemic is an “earthquake” in slow motion. It unfolds on a different time scale, which gives time for actions and reactions while it happens, but it is otherwise not so different, as explained in the book. Almost all the reasons why disasters happen remain true for pandemics.

Admitting to being an engineer can be an effective repellent in a party — except when admitting to being an earthquake engineer. Somehow, beyond the fascination with the extreme power of earthquakes, everybody wants to be reassured that our infrastructure will not collapse and that we will not suffer or die following a big one — as if for once we could be protected from the inescapable flaws of human nature. I have spent my life in one such endless party ... An earthquake engineer is tasked to design infrastructure to survive earthquakes. Such efforts often require engineers, architects, social scientists, public policy experts, political scientists and even the public — all with clashing priorities — to agree on a common objective when a consensus often does not even exist within a single one of these groups. Trying to make this happen is moving on a path that inevitably connects with the multiple facets of human nature — from the captivating ones to the crazy ones. In that world, I have more than three decades of experience, working with multidisciplinary teams advancing the goal of disaster resilience.

This book does not promise to change or improve anybody. In fact, if anything, it is the exact thesis here that human nature cannot be changed easily — barring disasters. However, it shows that things eventually come out right, and sometimes better, for the lucky ones who survive.

The answer is in the book. Those who get the urge to jump off a cliff each time they read end-of-the-world-stories on the internet may find some comfort in it, but then again, maybe not.