Redundancy Knot Redundant

354 words, < 2 minutes

In my personal opinion, I think it’s time to do some advanced planning. Grab your PIN numbers, and let’s visit an ATM machine in close proximity to a store so that we can go shopping for a rope to tie things together with knots. Wait, how many redundant phrases were in those two sentences?*

In engineering terms, redundancy means adding extra components in case of failure. How many times do you tie a knot in your shoelaces? Once? Do you use the strong version of the knot? Twice? That seems standard. How about three times? Hmm, probably a little excessive. Four times? Ok, now things are getting ridiculous. Redundant also means to be useless. At some point, redundancy becomes not only unhelpful but a risk.

However, in many cases, redundancy reduces risks by lowering the probability of total failure. Rock climbers think about redundancy more than most people. Choices when tying knots and building anchors are obvious critical decisions when suspended high above the ground.

The goal is to avoid a single point of failure, a point where if something fails the whole system fails. Having a backup reduces the risk of a single point of failure. Redundancy creates options, and optionality is powerful. But, how much redundancy is enough?

Climbers are forced to think carefully about evaluating risks and what is actually needed. They have to carry all of those extra components up a cliff. How often do we think about the balance of enough and redundancy in our lives?

There are costs to redundancy. Money. Time. Energy. Efficiency. More redundancy is not always better. There is a surprising amount of redundancy already built into our lives. If we are not careful, the complicated systems we create can become unstable and create new risks – the chain of knots gets so long that we trip over our shoelaces.

We can avoid overthinking redundancy, and the downward reflexive spiral of what-ifs, by recognizing what we have, thinking about probability, and getting better at knowing what we don’t need. Even strong knots and well-intentioned plans can come undone, but having more isn’t always a better solution.

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