<story><title>‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’</title><url>https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/05/911-oral-history-flight-93-book-excerpt-228001</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sopooneo</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m going to piggy-back on this about a certain way information may not add up. I live in Boston, and so do my siblings. We all worked downtown. On the day of the marathon bombing, I immediately called my sister on her cell phone to see if she was okay. Someone that &lt;i&gt;was not&lt;/i&gt; my sister picked up, then immediatly hung up after I said who I was looking for.&lt;p&gt;I was immediately terrified. What if my sister had been hurt, dropped her phone, and it was now in the hands of an opportunistic lowlife? But no. That wasn&amp;#x27;t it at all. It was instead, that the overloaded cell network, instead of just failing to connect my call, instead, &lt;i&gt;mis&lt;/i&gt;connected it.&lt;p&gt;That was a failure mode I had not predicted. In the end, all my people were fine. But I was shaken. And of course, many other people were not fine.</text></item><item><author>dredmorbius</author><text>This is a phenomenal oral history of the events, learning of, and response to the events of 9&amp;#x2F;11.&lt;p&gt;If an emergency is a circumstance in which &lt;i&gt;ongoing realities are emergent&lt;/i&gt; and aren&amp;#x27;t predictable based on previous experience or world-models, this is a phenomenal example of those dynamics.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Commander Anthony Barnes: That first hour was mass confusion because there was so much erroneous information. It was hard to tell what was fact and what wasn’t. We couldn’t confirm much of this stuff, so we had to take it on face value until proven otherwise.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve long maintained that the first signs of a disaster tend to be:&lt;p&gt;- Information doesn&amp;#x27;t add up.&lt;p&gt;- Communications are completely severed.&lt;p&gt;- Old models of understanding don&amp;#x27;t apply.&lt;p&gt;- Old filters or sources of information don&amp;#x27;t apply, and information overload is experienced &lt;i&gt;because it&amp;#x27;s not clear what to ignore or what to trust.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Our world models give us the means to &lt;i&gt;process&lt;/i&gt; and &lt;i&gt;parse&lt;/i&gt; information, but also, critically, &lt;i&gt;let us discard extraneous information at little or no cost&lt;/i&gt;.  When we&amp;#x27;re placed in unfamiliar or extraordinary circumstances, &amp;quot;foreign territory&amp;quot; as Col. Bob Maar put it, old models do not hold.&lt;p&gt;Very powerful reading.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>staticautomatic</author><text>I got misconnected once while trying to book a hotel reservation over the phone. Rooms became available 330 days out but a whole month at once, so when the reservation office opened at 8am or whatever on the first of the month, everyone would try to call in.&lt;p&gt;So many people were calling this number that the system would start hanging up on people at random, so you&amp;#x27;d just call back over and over hoping that you&amp;#x27;d get connected when the phones went live.&lt;p&gt;Finally, someone on the other end said &amp;quot;Hello?&amp;quot; and I said &amp;quot;Hi, I&amp;#x27;d like to book a room for next summer&amp;quot; and he said &amp;quot;Me too&amp;quot; and I said &amp;quot;good luck!&amp;quot; and hung up.</text></comment>
<story><title>‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’</title><url>https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/05/911-oral-history-flight-93-book-excerpt-228001</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sopooneo</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m going to piggy-back on this about a certain way information may not add up. I live in Boston, and so do my siblings. We all worked downtown. On the day of the marathon bombing, I immediately called my sister on her cell phone to see if she was okay. Someone that &lt;i&gt;was not&lt;/i&gt; my sister picked up, then immediatly hung up after I said who I was looking for.&lt;p&gt;I was immediately terrified. What if my sister had been hurt, dropped her phone, and it was now in the hands of an opportunistic lowlife? But no. That wasn&amp;#x27;t it at all. It was instead, that the overloaded cell network, instead of just failing to connect my call, instead, &lt;i&gt;mis&lt;/i&gt;connected it.&lt;p&gt;That was a failure mode I had not predicted. In the end, all my people were fine. But I was shaken. And of course, many other people were not fine.</text></item><item><author>dredmorbius</author><text>This is a phenomenal oral history of the events, learning of, and response to the events of 9&amp;#x2F;11.&lt;p&gt;If an emergency is a circumstance in which &lt;i&gt;ongoing realities are emergent&lt;/i&gt; and aren&amp;#x27;t predictable based on previous experience or world-models, this is a phenomenal example of those dynamics.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Commander Anthony Barnes: That first hour was mass confusion because there was so much erroneous information. It was hard to tell what was fact and what wasn’t. We couldn’t confirm much of this stuff, so we had to take it on face value until proven otherwise.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve long maintained that the first signs of a disaster tend to be:&lt;p&gt;- Information doesn&amp;#x27;t add up.&lt;p&gt;- Communications are completely severed.&lt;p&gt;- Old models of understanding don&amp;#x27;t apply.&lt;p&gt;- Old filters or sources of information don&amp;#x27;t apply, and information overload is experienced &lt;i&gt;because it&amp;#x27;s not clear what to ignore or what to trust.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Our world models give us the means to &lt;i&gt;process&lt;/i&gt; and &lt;i&gt;parse&lt;/i&gt; information, but also, critically, &lt;i&gt;let us discard extraneous information at little or no cost&lt;/i&gt;.  When we&amp;#x27;re placed in unfamiliar or extraordinary circumstances, &amp;quot;foreign territory&amp;quot; as Col. Bob Maar put it, old models do not hold.&lt;p&gt;Very powerful reading.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Noctem</author><text>Wow, I&amp;#x27;ve never heard of that happening. If anyone knows, I&amp;#x27;d love to hear a technical explanation of how and why that could occur.</text></comment>