Question Authorities

Every once in a while, on a rare occasion and under a blue moon, one comes across an article so well written and so powerful and truthful (or that touches the truth as you see it), that it moves you to the core.

A June Wired article affected me this way, entitled "Question Authorities", Why it's smart to disobey officials in emergencies.

It's about the conclusion of a 4 year report by civil engineers "who studied the destruction of the World Trade Center towers, sifting the tragedy for its lessons. And it turns out that one of the lessons is: Disobey authority. In a connected world, ordinary people often have access to better information than officials do.

..."It's an eloquent document, in many ways. The report confirms a chilling fact that was widely covered in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. After both buildings were burning, many calls to 911 resulted in advice to stay put and wait for rescue. Also, occupants of the towers had been trained to use the stairs, not the elevators, in case of evacuation.

Fortunately, this advice was mostly ignored and saved roughly 2,500 lives.

In fact, the people inside the towers were better informed and far more knowledgeable than emergency operators far from the scene. While walking down the stairs, they answered their cell phones and glanced at their BlackBerries, learning from friends that there had been a terrorist attacl and that the Pentagon had also been hit.

Anybody who has been paying attention probably suspects that if we rely on orders from above to protect us, we'll be in terrible shape. But in a networked era, we have increasing opportunities to help ourselves. This is the real source of homeland security: not authoritarian schemes of surveillance and punishment, but multichannel networks of advice, information, and mutual aid.

emily | 12:24 PM | News, Buzz |
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