The New Normal

Abstract

In this chapter and the next we take stock of our own disastrous times, which in some respects are record-breakingly bad. We face a new normal in which the impossible happens, ‘over here’ as well as ‘over there’. Salient themes are identified, centring on the increasing pace, complexity and interconnectivity of contemporary existence. Here, automated trading serves as the pre-eminent example of the normality of accidents within complex systems. This episode gives us insights into changes within our socio-technical landscape that bear on today’s accidents: the pace of technological innovation, increasing technological complexity, the shifting form of accidents in a networked world, the growing density and synchronization of human-machine relationships, and novel types of threats and the type of disaster that can potentially result (integral events that are transmitted instantaneously, dispersed globally, and experienced universally). Such events lead to crises in authority and control, and, as a corollary, trust. For who truly understands the world which we now inhabit?