Not Urgent

Description.

Components.

Related Engine Processes.

Further reading.

• The action required tomorrow may be greater than that required today. Especially beware tipping-points (systems qv): non-linearity, a function of system structure (complex-behaviour qv).
• Not urgent: cf. cf time-scope qv: tempting to continually put off action until tomorrow, although the action required tomorrow will be greater than that required today. cf. instinct which isn't suited to slow problems (especially multi-generation problems). Could result in novelty qv (changed sys structure) hence underestimating-change qv.
• See project-management qv.
• Low probability qv means that the event probably won't happen soon. This can be interpreted as low urgency, even though the consequences of the event could be high. risk-factor-misjudgement qv, project-management qv.
• Sometimes low urgency means that consideration can be deferred (if there is ample time for actions to be effective). This allows some other problem to be addressed first.
• Example (for Collapse-Less component?): Aon Center building. Options were to either pay $80m to fix the problem or risk having marble slabs drop from the building onto people below. The chance of a slab falling imminently was very small (it only happened once in about 20 years, and that was during initial construction), so there seemed to be no urgency to fix the problem. As a result, it was not treated as a urgent problem: deferring the solution was always tempting. Full remediation took almost 20 years.
• If we don't make a decision in the current 24 hours, tomorrow will still come and it will seem identical to today except for the normal random variation (probability qv). There will be no obvious trend. So we can conclude (using generalisation beloved of System 1) that we don't have to do anything on any day! There will not be a sense of urgency not-urgent qv to address a problem that progresses slowly.
• The global community (and most individuals) pulled together quickly and effectively re COVID, but less so re GW. GW is not urgent because of slow change. Consequences of GW may not be perceived to be as great as those of COVID, possibly due to limitation of time-scope thinking and uncertainty concerning possible implications of GW.