Transhumanist politics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanist_politics 

Transhumanist politics constitutes a group of political ideologies that generally express the belief in improving human individuals through science and technology. Specific topics include space migration, and cryogenic suspension. It is considered the opposing ideal to the concept of bioconservatism, as Transhumanist politics argue for the use of all technology to enhance human individuals.

History

The term "transhumanism" with its present meaning was popularised by Julian Huxley's 1957 essay of that name, at a time when his open endorsement of eugenics became socially controversial.

Natasha Vita-More was elected as a Councilperson for the 28th Senatorial District of Los Angeles in 1992. She ran with the Green Party, but on a personal platform of "transhumanism". She quit after a year, saying her party was "too neurotically geared toward environmentalism".

James Hughes identifies the "neoliberal" Extropy Institute, founded by philosopher Max More and developed in the 1990s, as the first organized advocates for transhumanism. And he identifies the late-1990s formation of the World Transhumanist Association (WTA), a European organization which later was renamed to Humanity+ (H+), as partly a reaction to the free market perspective of the "Extropians". Per Hughes, "[t]he WTA included both social democrats and neoliberals around a liberal democratic definition of transhumanism, codified in the Transhumanist Declaration." Hughes has also detailed the political currents in transhumanism, particularly the shift around 2009 from socialist transhumanism to libertarian and anarcho-capitalist transhumanism. He claims that the left was pushed out of the World Transhumanist Association Board of Directors, and that libertarians and Singularitarians have secured a hegemony in the transhumanism community with help from Peter Thiel, but Hughes remains optimistic about a techno-progressive future.

In 2012, the Longevity Party, a movement described as "100% transhumanist" by cofounder Maria Konovalenko, began to organize in Russia for building a balloted political party. Another Russian programme, the 2045 Initiative was founded in 2012 by billionaire Dmitry Itskov with its own proposed "Evolution 2045" political party advocating life extension and android avatars.

In October 2013, the political party Alianza Futurista ALFA was founded in Spain with transhumanist goals and ideals inscribed in its statutes.

In October 2014, Zoltan Istvan announced that he would be running in the 2016 United States presidential election under the banner of the "Transhumanist Party." By November 2019, the Party claimed 880 members, with Gennady Stolyarov II as chair.

In 2016, Klaus Schwab, in his book The Fourth Industrial Revolution, asserted that transhumanist technologies like gene editing such as CRISPR and others will inevitably merge human physical, digital, and biological domains, presenting this transformation as an unstoppable driver of human progress in a new political and societal era.

In 2016, Yuval Noah Harari's book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow popularized transhumanist ideas, envisioning a future where biotechnology, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence enable humans to transcend biological limits, potentially creating "superhumans" with enhanced cognitive, physical, and emotional capacities. In 2018, Yuval Noah Harari, in works like 21 Lessons for the 21st Century and public talks, called humans “hackable animals,” asserting that AI and biotechnology will inevitably enable entities to manipulate human behavior and cognition, presenting a transhumanist future as both unavoidable and politically transformative.

Other groups using the name "Transhumanist Party" exist in the United Kingdom and Germany.

Core values

According to a 2006 study by the European Parliament, transhumanism is the political expression of the ideology that technology and science should be used to enhance human abilities and characteristics like physical beauty, or lifespan.

According to Amon Twyman of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), political philosophies which support transhumanism include social futurism, techno-progressivism, techno-libertarianism, and anarcho-transhumanism. Twyman considers such philosophies to collectively constitute political transhumanism.

Techno-progressives, also known as Democratic transhumanists, support equal access to human enhancement technologies in order to promote social equality and prevent technologies from furthering the divide among socioeconomic classes. However, libertarian transhumanist Ronald Bailey is critical of the democratic transhumanism described by James Hughes. Jeffrey Bishop wrote that the disagreements among transhumanists regarding individual and community rights is "precisely the tension that philosophical liberalism historically tried to negotiate," but that disagreeing entirely with a posthuman future is a disagreement with the right to choose what humanity will become. Woody Evans has supported placing posthuman rights in a continuum with animal rights and human rights.

Riccardo Campa wrote that transhumanism can be coupled with many different political, philosophical, and religious views, and that this diversity can be an asset so long as transhumanists do not give priority to existing affiliations over membership with organized transhumanism. Truman Chen of the Stanford Political Journal considers many transhumanist ideals to be anti-political.

Anarcho-transhumanism

Flag of anarcho-transhumanism, represented by a blue and black diagonal flag, where the blue is representative of futuristic symbolism

Anarcho-transhumanism is an anti-capitalist ideology synthesizing anarchism with transhumanism that is concerned with both social and physical freedom respectively. Indeed, according to the anarcho-transhumanist activist William Gillis : "We should seek to expand our physical freedom just as we seek to expand our social freedom." Also, anarcho-transhumanists define freedom as the expansion of one's own ability to experience the world around them. Anarcho-transhumanists may advocate various praxis to advance their ideals, including computer hacking, three-dimensional printing, or biohacking.

The philosophy draws heavily from the individualist anarchism of William Godwin, Max Stirner and Voltairine de Cleyre as well as the cyberfeminism presented by Donna Haraway in A Cyborg Manifesto. Anarcho-transhumanist thought looks at issues surrounding bodily autonomy, disability, gender, neurodiversity, queer theory, science, free software, and sexuality whilst presenting critiques through anarchist and transhumanist lens of ableism, cisheteropatriarchy and primitivism. Much of early anarcho-transhumanist thought was a response to anarcho-primitivism. Anarcho-transhumanism may be interpreted either as criticism of, or an extension of humanism, because it challenges what being human means.

Anarcho-transhumanists also criticise non-anarchist forms of transhumanism such as democratic transhumanism and libertarian transhumanism as incoherent and unsurvivable due to their preservation of the state. They view such instruments of power as inherently unethical and incompatible with the acceleration of social and material freedom for all individuals. Anarcho-transhumanism is generally anti-capitalist, arguing capitalist accumulation of wealth would lead to dystopia while partnered with transhumanism, instead advocating for equal access to advanced technologies that enable morphological freedom and space travel.

Anarcho-transhumanist philosopher William Gillis has advocated for a 'social singularity', or a transformation in humanity's morals, to complement the technological singularity. This social singularity will ensure that no coercion will be required to maintain order in a future society where people are likely to have access to lethal forms of technology.

Democratic transhumanism

Democratic transhumanism, a term coined by James Hughes in 2002, refers to the stance of transhumanists (advocates for the development and use of human enhancement technologies) who espouse liberal, social, and/or radical democratic political views.

Philosophy

According to Hughes, the ideology "stems from the assertion that human beings will generally be happier when they take rational control of the natural and social forces that control their lives." The ethical foundation of democratic transhumanism rests upon rule utilitarianism and non-anthropocentric personhood theory. Democratic transhumanists support equal access to human enhancement technologies in order to promote social equality and to prevent technologies from furthering the divide among the socioeconomic classes. While raising objections both to right-wing and left-wing bioconservatism, and libertarian transhumanism, Hughes aims to encourage democratic transhumanists and their potential progressive allies to unite as a new social movement and influence biopolitical public policy.

An attempt to expand the middle ground between technorealism and techno-utopianism, democratic transhumanism can be seen as a radical form of techno-progressivism. Appearing several times in Hughes' work, the term "radical" (from Latin rādīx, rādīc-, root) is used as an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the root or going to the root. His central thesis is that emerging technologies and radical democracy can help citizens overcome some of the root causes of inequalities of power.

According to Hughes, the terms techno-progressivism and democratic transhumanism both refer to the same set of Enlightenment values and principles; however, the term technoprogressive has replaced the use of the word democratic transhumanism.

Trends

Hughes has identified 15 "left futurist" or "left techno-utopian" trends and projects that could be incorporated into democratic transhumanism:

• Afrofuturism
• Assistive technology-enabled disabled people
• Biopunk science fiction and movement
• Body modification culture
• Cyborg feminism/cyberfeminism
• Feminist science fiction
• Free software movement
• Lesbian science fiction, gay science fiction, bisexual science fiction and transgender science fiction
• Nanosocialism
• Post-Darwinian leftism
• Postcyberpunk science fiction
• Post-work/guaranteed minimum income movement
• Technogaianism
• Up-wing politics
• Viridian design movement

List of democratic transhumanists

These are notable individuals who have identified themselves, or have been identified by Hughes, as advocates of democratic transhumanism:

• Charles Stross
• George Dvorsky
• Giulio Prisco
• Ken MacLeod
• Mark Alan Walker
• Martine Rothblatt
• Ramez Naam
• Riccardo Campa

Criticism

Science journalist Ronald Bailey wrote a review of Citizen Cyborg in his online column for Reason magazine in which he offered a critique of democratic transhumanism and a defense of libertarian transhumanism.

Critical theorist Dale Carrico defended democratic transhumanism from Bailey's criticism. However, he would later criticize democratic transhumanism himself on technoprogressive grounds.

Libertarian transhumanism

Libertarian transhumanism is a political ideology synthesizing libertarianism and transhumanism.

Self-identified libertarian transhumanists, such as Ronald Bailey of Reason magazine and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, are advocates of the asserted "right to human enhancement" who argue that the free market is the best guarantor of this right, claiming that it produces greater prosperity and personal freedom than other economic systems.

Principles

Libertarian transhumanists believe that the principle of self-ownership is the most fundamental idea from which both libertarianism and transhumanism stem. They are rational egoists and ethical egoists who embrace the prospect of using emerging technologies to enhance human capacities, which they believe stems from the self-interested application of reason and will in the context of the individual freedom to achieve a posthuman state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. They extend this rational and ethical egoism to advocate a form of "biolibertarianism".

As strong civil libertarians, libertarian transhumanists hold that any attempt to limit or suppress the asserted right to human enhancement is a violation of civil rights and civil liberties. However, as strong economic libertarians, they also reject proposed public policies of government-regulated and -insured human enhancement technologies, which are advocated by democratic transhumanists, because they fear that any state intervention will steer or limit their choices.

Extropianism, the earliest current of transhumanist thought defined in 1988 by philosopher Max More, initially included an anarcho-capitalist interpretation of the concept of "spontaneous order" in its principles, which states that a free market economy achieves a more efficient allocation of societal resources than any planned or mixed economy could achieve. In 2000, while revising the principles of Extropy, More seemed to be abandoning libertarianism in favor of modern liberalism and anticipatory democracy. However, many Extropians remained libertarian transhumanists.

Criticisms

Critiques of the techno-utopianism of libertarian transhumanists from progressive cultural critics include Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron's 1995 essay The Californian Ideology; Mark Dery's 1996 book Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century; and Paulina Borsook's 2000 book Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High-Tech.

Barbrook argues that libertarian transhumanists are proponents of the Californian Ideology who embrace the goal of reactionary modernism: economic growth without social mobility. According to Barbrook, libertarian transhumanists are unwittingly appropriating the theoretical legacy of Stalinist communism by substituting, among other concepts, the "vanguard party" with the "digerati", and the "new Soviet man" with the "posthuman". Dery coined the dismissive phrase "body-loathing" to describe the attitude of libertarian transhumanists and those in the cyberculture who want to escape from their "meat puppet" through mind uploading into cyberspace. Borsook asserts that libertarian transhumanists indulge in a subculture of selfishness, elitism, and escapism.

Sociologist James Hughes is the most militant critic of libertarian transhumanism. While articulating "democratic transhumanism" as a sociopolitical program in his 2004 book Citizen Cyborg, Hughes sought to convince libertarian transhumanists to embrace social democracy by arguing that:

1. State action is required to address catastrophic threats from transhumanist technologies;
2. Only believable and effective public policies to prevent adverse consequences from new technologies will reassure skittish publics that they do not have to be banned;
3. Social policies must explicitly address public concerns that transhumanist biotechnologies will exacerbate social inequality;
4. Monopolistic practices and overly restrictive intellectual property law can seriously delay the development of transhumanist technologies, and restrict their access;
5. Only a strong liberal democratic state can ensure that posthumans are not persecuted; and
6. Libertarian transhumanists (who are anti-naturalists) are inconsistent in arguing for the free market on the grounds that it is a natural phenomenon.

Klaus-Gerd Giesen, a German political scientist specializing in the philosophy of technology, wrote a critique of the libertarianism he imputes to all transhumanists. While pointing out that the works of Austrian School economist Friedrich Hayek figure in practically all of the recommended reading lists of Extropians, he argues that transhumanists, convinced of the sole virtues of the free market, advocate an unabashed inegalitarianism and merciless meritocracy which can be reduced in reality to a biological fetish. He is especially critical of their promotion of a science-fictional liberal eugenics, virulently opposed to any political regulation of human genetics, where the consumerist model presides over their ideology. Giesen concludes that the despair of finding social and political solutions to today's sociopolitical problems incites transhumanists to reduce everything to the hereditary gene, as a fantasy of omnipotence to be found within the individual, even if it means transforming the subject (human) to a new draft (posthuman).

Symbol of Left Transhumanism

Left Transhumanism

Left Transhumanism is a political ideology synthesizing left wing ideas and transhumanism.

Left Transhumanists believe a egalitarian approach to society and economics must be put within a Transhumanist context. Arguing that without egalitarianism, Transhumanism will amount to a form of elitism due to free market mechanisms. Furthermore it is argued that this trend is already occurring in the early stages. Citing Bryan Johnson's costly medical treatments and Jeff Bezos's Altos Labs as a case in point that the capitalist class is slowly gaining the ability to obtain longevity treatments while the rest of humanity dies at a rate of 100,000 per day.

Basis

Left Transhumanists hold that a new society must come about either through revolution or reforms for the masses of people to truly experience the opportunities of a Transhumanist society. Despite the abundance that may occur if a society has vastly automated labor. The social relations which dictate society will not allow that abundance to be distributed in a egalitarian manner under capitalism. Left Transhumanist often point to food production and hunger as well as the producible results of fast fashion and the 1 billion people without shoes as foreshadowing of the conditions which will encompass longevity treatments or an abundance of resources. In addition Left Transhumanists assert Transhumanism should return to its roots in regards to economics, holding that a return to a Transhumanism akin to Russian Cosmism or individuals such as Alexander Bogdanov, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, or Ivan Yefremov may aid the promotion of Transhumanist ideals. Similarly to the relationship between Russian Cosmism and Socialism.

Criticisms

Jeffrey Noonan argues that a Marxist transhumanism is politically and ethically incoherent. While it is true that Transhumanists and Marxists believe that human beings are self-determining and self-transforming. Transhumanists are committed to transcending the material conditions of organic life with their ultimate aim being to encourage the emergence of an artificial superintelligence whose self-creative capacities are not limited by the needs of organic life forms. Socialism, by contrast, is a political and ethical movement committed to ending the suffering caused by capitalism, by changing social institutions and the values according to which resources are distributed and utilized.

Contrasting stances

Philosophical

Critics argue that libertarian transhumanism’s push for universal human enhancement reflects a philosophical hubris, akin to Enlightenment absolutism or despotism, presuming individual rational egoism can override shared human values and dictate a posthuman future for all. By asserting that technologies like genetic engineering or cognitive augmentation should universally reshape humanity, it is seen to violate humanism’s reverence for collective dignity and moral limits honoring humanity’s intrinsic sanctity. This imposition, framed as reason’s inevitable triumph, is critiqued as an ethical overreach that risks eroding the shared essence of human existence.

Bioconservatism

Main article: Bioconservatism

Bioconservatism (a portmanteau word combining "biology" and "conservatism") is a stance of opposition to modifying human nature, especially when perceived to threaten a given social order. Strong bioconservative positions include opposition to genetic modification of food crops, the cloning and genetic engineering of livestock and pets, and, most prominently, rejection of the genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive modification of human beings to overcome what are broadly perceived as current human biological and cultural limitations.

Bioconservatives range in political perspective from right-leaning religious and cultural conservatives to left-leaning environmentalists and technology critics. What unifies bioconservatives is skepticism about medical and other biotechnological transformations of the living world. Typically less sweeping as a critique of technological society than bioluddism, the bioconservative perspective is characterized by its defense of the natural, deployed as a moral category.

Despite being opposed, both transhumanism and bioconservatism, in their more moderate expressions, share an opposition to unsafe, unfair, undemocratic forms of technological development, and both recognize that such developmental modes can facilitate unacceptable recklessness and exploitation, exacerbate injustice and incubate dangerous social discontent.

Best of all possible worlds

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_of_all_possible_worlds 

Gottfried Leibniz, the philosopher who coined the term "best of all possible worlds" in his 1710 work Théodicée.

The phrase "the best of all possible worlds" (French: Le meilleur des mondes possibles; German: Die beste aller möglichen Welten) was coined by the German polymath and Enlightenment philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in his 1710 work Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal (Essays of Theodicy on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil), more commonly known simply as the Theodicy. The claim that the actual world is the best of all possible worlds is the central argument in Leibniz's theodicy, or his attempt to solve the problem of evil.

Leibniz

In Leibniz's works, the argument about the best of all possible worlds appears in the context of his theodicy, a word that he coined by combining the Greek words Theos, 'God', and dikē, 'justice'. Its object was to solve the problem of evil, that is, to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering in the world with the existence of a perfectly good, all-powerful and all-knowing God, who would seem required to prevent it; as such, the name comes from Leibniz's conceiving of the project as the vindication of God's justice, namely against the charges of injustice brought against him by such evils. Proving that this is the best of all possible worlds would dispel such charges by showing that, no matter how it may intuitively appear to us from our limited point of view, any other world – such as, namely, one without the evils which trouble our lives – would, in fact, have been worse than the current one, all things considered.

Leibniz's argument for this conclusion may be gathered from the paragraphs 53–55 of his Monadology, which run as follows:

53. Now as there are an infinity of possible universes in the ideas of God, and but one of them can exist, there must be a sufficient reason for the choice of God which determines him to select one rather than another.

54. And this reason is to be found only in the fitness or in the degree of perfection which these worlds possess, each possible thing having the right to claim existence in proportion to the perfection which it involves.

55. This is the cause for the existence of the greatest good; namely, that the wisdom of God permits him to know it, his goodness causes him to choose it, and his power enables him to produce it.

Since this is a very compact exposition, the remainder of this section will explain the argument in more words. While the text refers to "possible universes", this article will often adopt the more common usage "possible worlds", which refers to the same thing, which is explained next. As Leibniz said in the Theodicy, this term should not be misunderstood as referring only to a single planet or reality, since it refers to the sum of everything that exists:

I call 'World' the whole succession and the whole agglomeration of all existent things, lest it be said that several worlds could have existed in different times and different places.

Possible worlds

Possible worlds, according to Leibniz's theory, are combinations of beings which are possible together, that is, compossible.

A being is possible, for Leibniz, when it is logically possible, i.e., when its definition involves no contradiction. For example, a married bachelor is impossible because a "bachelor" is, by definition, an unmarried man, which contradicts "married". But a unicorn, if defined as a horse with a horn, contains no contradiction, so that such a being is possible, even if none exist in the actual world.

Beings are possible together, in turn, when they do not enter into contradiction with each other. For instance, it is logically possible that a meteor might have fallen from the sky onto Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales's head soon after he was born, killing him. But it is not logically possible that what happens in a given world (e.g. that Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia) also does not happen in the same world (i.e. that Jimmy Wales did not found Wikipedia). While both of these events are logically possible in themselves, they are not logically possible together, or compossible – so, they cannot form part of the same possible world.

Leibniz claims in §53, then, that there are infinitely many of these possible worlds, or combinations of compossible beings, in the ideas of God. These are the worlds which God could possibly bring into existence, since not even God, according to Leibniz, could create a world which contains a contradiction.

Sufficient reason

Although God cannot create a self-contradictory world, he is all-powerful and all-knowing, as emphasized in §55. He cannot be prevented from creating a world by not knowing about it, or by lacking the power to make it. Given these assumptions, it might seem that God could create just any one of the worlds. And since there are infinitely many possible worlds, it might seem that, just as there is no greatest among the infinitely many numbers, there is no best of the possible worlds.

Leibniz rejects these possibilities by appealing to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), a central principle of his philosophical system. This principle, which he was the first to name, was once described by him as the principle "that nothing happens without a reason"; in the Monadology, which is the work at hand, he described it as follows:

31. Our reasoning is based upon two great principles: first, that of contradiction, by means of which we decide that to be false which involves contradiction and that to be true which contradicts or is opposed to the false. 32. And second, the principle of sufficient reason, in virtue of which we believe that no fact can be real or existing and no statement true unless it has a sufficient reason why it should be thus and not otherwise. Most frequently, however, these reasons cannot be known by us.

Since Leibniz adopted his principle, he could not admit that God chose to create this world rather than another – that God's choice was "thus and not otherwise" – for no reason, or "arbitrarily".

Leibniz then claims that the only possible reason for the choice between these possible worlds is "the fitness or the degree of perfection" which they possess – i.e., the quality which makes worlds better than others, so that the world with the greatness "fitness" or "perfection" is the best one. As the philosophers Michael Murray and Sean Greenberg interpreted it, this claim may be understood by the consideration that basing the choice on any other quality about the worlds would have been arbitrary, contrary to the PSR.

Leibniz claims that God's choice is caused not only by its being the most reasonable, but also by God's perfect goodness, a traditional claim about God which Leibniz accepted. As Leibniz says in §55, God's goodness causes him to produce the best world. Hence, the best possible world, or "greatest good" as Leibniz called it in this work, must be the one that exists.

Evil in the best world

Leibniz, following a long metaphysical tradition that goes back at least to Augustine, conceived of the perfection of the universe as its "metaphysical goodness", which is identical with "being", or "reality". The best world is the one with the greatest "degree of reality", the greatest "quantity of essence", the greatest "perfection" and "intelligibility". According to this tradition, "evil, though real, is not a 'thing', but rather a direction away from the goodness of the One"; evil is the absence of good, and accordingly, it is technically wrong to say that God created evil, properly speaking. Rather, he created a world which was imperfectly good.

According to the privation theory of evil, all examples of evils are analysed as consisting in the absence of some good that ought to be there, or is natural to a thing – for instance, disease is the absence of health, blindness is the absence of sight, and vice is the absence of virtue. Evil may be said to exist in the same way the hole of a donut exists: the donut was created, but the hole itself was not made, it was just never filled in – it is an absence. And just as the hole could not exist without the donut, evil is parasitic upon good, since it is the corruption of a good nature. "God is infinite, and the devil is limited; the good may and does go to infinity, while evil has its bounds."

Leibniz did, nevertheless, concede that God has created a world with evil in it, and could have created a world without it. He claimed, however, that the existence of evil does not necessarily mean a worse world, so that this is still the best world that God could have made. In fact, Leibniz claimed that the presence of evil may make for a better world, insofar as "it may happen that the evil is accompanied by a greater good" – as he said, "an imperfection in the part may be required for a perfection in the whole".

In light of the conceptual tools that have already been explained, this claim may be phrased as stating that there are goods in the universe which would not be compossible with the prevention of certain evils. This claim, which may seem counterintuitive, was elucidated by Leibniz in various ways. For instance, in the Theodicy, he used certain analogies to emphasize how the contrast provided by evil may increase the good, and make it more discernible:

Use has ever been made of comparisons taken from the pleasures of the senses when these are mingled with that which borders on pain, to prove that there is something of like nature in intellectual pleasures. A little acid, sharpness or bitterness is often more pleasing than sugar; shadows enhance colours; and even a dissonance in the right place gives relief to harmony. We wish to be terrified by rope-dancers on the point of falling and we wish that tragedies shall well-nigh cause us to weep. Do men relish health enough, or thank God enough for it, without having ever been sick? And is it not most often necessary that a little evil render the good more discernible, that is to say, greater?

In other works, Leibniz also used his broader theory that there are no "purely extrinsic denominations" – everything that may be said about something is essential to it. So, according to Leibniz, it is technically wrong to say that "I would be better off" in another possible world: each individual is world-bound, so that, if God had not actualized this specific world, I would not exist at all. And even if, due to my great personal suffering, I should think that it would be better for me to not exist, it would nevertheless be worse for the rest of the universe, since this world is the best possible world, as was proved.

Uses outside of theodicy

Leibniz also applied his theory of the best of all possible worlds to solve the problem of induction. Out of all possible worlds, God has chosen "the most perfect, that is to say, the one which is at the same time the simplest in hypotheses and the richest in phenomena". (Discourse on Metaphysics, §6) This justifies human beings in choosing to believe, out of the available theories, those which are simplest and have the most explanatory power.

Before Leibniz

The philosopher Calvin Normore has claimed that, according to the Stoics, this is the best of all possible worlds, and that this opinion was shared by Peter Abelard.

Avicenna argued that divine providence ensures that this is the best of all possible worlds.

Thomas Aquinas, in article 6 of question 25 of the first part of his Summa Theologiae, had affirmed that God can always make better what he has made, but only by making more things; "the present creation being supposed, cannot be better."

After Leibniz

18th century

Following the devastating Lisbon Earthquake (1 November 1755), which occurred decades after the publication of the Theodicy (1710), Leibniz's philosophical optimism and theodicy incurred considerable criticism both from his fellow Enlightenment philosophers and from Christian theologians. Critics of Leibniz argue that the world contains an amount of suffering too great to permit belief in philosophical optimism.

The claim that we live in the best of all possible worlds drew scorn most notably from Voltaire, who lampooned it in his comic novella Candide by having the character Dr. Pangloss (a parody of Leibniz and Maupertuis) repeat it like a mantra when great catastrophes keep happening to him and the titular protagonist. Derived from this character, the adjective "Panglossian" describes a person who believes that the actual world is the best possible one, or is otherwise excessively optimistic.

19th century

The physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond, in his "Leibnizian Thoughts in Modern Science" (1870), wrote that Leibniz thought of God as a mathematician:

As is well known, the theory of the maxima and minima of functions was indebted to him for the greatest progress through the discovery of the method of tangents. Well, he conceives God in the creation of the world like a mathematician who is solving a minimum problem, or rather, in our modern phraseology, a problem in the calculus of variations – the question being to determine among an infinite number of possible worlds, that for which the sum of necessary evil is a minimum.

Du Bois-Reymond believed that Charles Darwin supported a version of Leibniz's perfect world, since every organism can be understood as relatively adapted to its environment at any point in its evolution.

Arthur Schopenhauer argued, contrary to Leibniz, that our world must be the worst of all possible worlds, because if it were only a little worse, it could not continue to exist.

20th century

The Theodicy was deemed illogical by the philosopher Bertrand Russell. Russell argues that moral and physical evil must result from metaphysical evil (imperfection). But imperfection is merely limitation; if existence is good, as Leibniz maintains, then the mere existence of evil requires that evil also be good. In addition, libertarian Christian theology (not related to political libertarianism) defines sin as not necessary but contingent, the result of free will. Russell maintains that Leibniz failed to logically show that metaphysical necessity (divine will) and human free will are not incompatible or contradictory. He also claims that when Leibniz analyzes the propositions, he is "ambiguous or doubtful..." (O'Briant). That is, Leibniz does not sound sure, and is unsure of himself when he writes his premises; and they do not work together without making Leibniz sound unsure of himself.

21st century

The philosopher Alvin Plantinga criticized Leibniz's theodicy by arguing that there probably is not such a thing as the best of all possible worlds, since one can always conceive a better world, such as a world with one more morally righteous person.

The philosopher William C. Lane defended Leibniz from Plantinga's criticism and also claimed that Leibniz's theory has pandeistic consequences:

If divine becoming were complete, God's kenosis – God's self-emptying for the sake of love – would be total. In this pandeistic view, nothing of God would remain separate and apart from what God would become. Any separate divine existence would be inconsistent with God's unreserved participation in the lives and fortunes of the actualized phenomena."

Leibniz's theodicy has been defended by Justin Daeley, who argues that God must create the best, and James Franklin, who argues that goods and evils in creation are interconnected with mathematical necessity and hence cannot be separated by divine power.

Hazard

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazard

A hazard pictogram to indicate a hazard from a flammable substance.

A hazard is a potential source of harm. Substances, events, or circumstances can constitute hazards when their nature would potentially allow them to cause damage to health, life, property, or any other interest of value. The probability of that harm being realized in a specific incident, combined with the magnitude of potential harm, make up its risk. This term is often used synonymously in colloquial speech.

Hazards can be classified in several ways which are not mutually exclusive. They can be classified by causing actor (for example, natural or anthropogenic), by physical nature (e.g. biological or chemical) or by type of damage (e.g., health hazard or environmental hazard). Examples of natural disasters with highly harmful impacts on a society are floods, droughts, earthquakes, tropical cyclones, lightning strikes, volcanic activity and wildfires. Technological and anthropogenic hazards include, for example, structural collapses, transport accidents, accidental or intentional explosions, and release of toxic materials.

The term climate hazard is used in the context of climate change. These are hazards that stem from climate-related events and can be associated with global warming, such as wildfires, floods, droughts, sea level rise. Climate hazards can combine with other hazards and result in compound event losses (see also loss and damage). For example, the climate hazard of heat can combine with the hazard of poor air quality. Or the climate hazard flooding can combine with poor water quality.

In physics terms, common theme across many forms of hazards is the presence of energy that can cause damage, as it can happen with chemical energy, mechanical energy or thermal energy. This damage can affect different valuable interests, and the severity of the associated risk varies.

Definition

A hazard is defined as "the potential occurrence of a natural or human-induced physical event or trend that may cause loss of life, injury, or other health impacts, as well as damage and loss to property, infrastructure, livelihoods, service provision, ecosystems and environmental resources."

A hazard only exists if there is a pathway to exposure. For example, the center of the Earth consists of molten material at very high temperatures, which would be a severe hazard if contact could be made with the core. However, since that is not feasible, the Earth's core currently poses no hazard.

The frequency and severity of hazards are important aspects for risk management. Hazards may also be assessed in relation to the impact that they have.

In defining hazard Keith Smith argues that what may be defined as the hazard is only a hazard if there is the presence of humans to make it a hazard. In this regard, human sensitivity to environmental hazards is a combination of both physical exposure (natural and/or technological events at a location related to their statistical variability) and human vulnerability (about social and economic tolerance of the same location).

Relationship with other terms

Disaster

Main articles: Disaster and Natural disaster § Terminology

An example of the distinction between a natural hazard and a disaster is that an earthquake is the hazard which caused the 1906 San Francisco earthquake disaster.

A natural disaster is the highly harmful impact on a society or community following a natural hazard event. The term "disaster" itself is defined as follows: "Disasters are serious disruptions to the functioning of a community that exceed its capacity to cope using its own resources. Disasters can be caused by natural, man-made and technological hazards, as well as various factors that influence the exposure and vulnerability of a community."

The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) explains the relationship between natural disasters and natural hazards as follows: "Natural hazards and natural disasters are related but are not the same. A natural hazard is the threat of an event that will likely have a negative impact. A natural disaster is the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community.

Disaster can take various forms, including hurricane, volcano, tsunami, earthquake, drought, famine, plague, disease, rail crash, car crash, tornado, deforestation, flooding, toxic release, and spills (oil, chemicals).

A disaster hazard is an extreme geophysical event that is capable of causing a disaster. 'Extreme' in this case means a substantial variation in either the positive or the negative direction from the normal trend; flood disasters can result from exceptionally high precipitation and river discharge, and drought is caused by exceptionally low values. The fundamental determinants of hazard and the risk of such hazards occurring is timing, location, magnitude and frequency. For example, magnitudes of earthquakes are measured on the Richter scale from 1 to 10, whereby each increment of 1 indicates a tenfold increase in severity. The magnitude-frequency rule states that over a significant period of time many small events and a few large ones will occur. Hurricanes and typhoons on the other hand occur between 5 degrees and 25 degrees north and south of the equator, tending to be seasonal phenomena that are thus largely recurrent in time and predictable in location due to the specific climate variables necessary for their formation.

Risk and vulnerability

Main articles: Risk and Vulnerability

The terms hazard and risk are often used interchangeably. However, in terms of risk assessment, these are two very distinct terms. A hazard is an agent that can cause harm or damage to humans, property, or the environment. Risk is the probability that exposure to a hazard will lead to a negative consequence, or more simply, a hazard poses no risk if there is no exposure to that hazard.

Risk is a combination of hazard, exposure and vulnerability. For example in terms of water security: examples of hazards are droughts, floods and decline in water quality. Bad infrastructure and bad governance lead to high exposure to risk.

Risk can be defined as the likelihood or probability of a given hazard of a given level causing a particular level of loss of damage. The elements of risk are populations, communities, the built environment, the natural environment, economic activities and services which are under threat of disaster in a given area.

Another definition of risk is "the probable frequency and probable magnitude of future losses". This definition also focuses on the probability of future loss whereby the degree of vulnerability to hazard represents the level of risk on a particular population or environment. The threats posed by a hazard are:

1. Hazards to people – death, injury, disease and stress
2. Hazards to goods – property damage and economic loss
3. Hazards to environment –loss of flora and fauna, pollution and loss of amenity

Classifications

Hazards can be classified in several ways. These categories are not mutually exclusive which means that one hazard can fall into several categories. For example, water pollution with toxic chemicals is an anthropogenic hazard as well as an environmental hazard.

One of the classification methods is by specifying the origin of the hazard. One key concept in identifying a hazard is the presence of stored energy that, when released, can cause damage. The stored energy can occur in many forms: chemical, mechanical, thermal, radioactive, electrical, etc.

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) explains that "each hazard is characterized by its location, intensity or magnitude, frequency and probability".

A distinction can also be made between rapid-onset natural hazards, technological hazards, and social hazards, which are described as being of sudden occurrence and relatively short duration, and the consequences of longer-term environmental degradation such as desertification and drought.

Hazards may be grouped according to their characteristics. These factors are related to geophysical events, which are not process specific:

1. Areal extent of damage zone
2. Intensity of impact at a point
3. Duration of impact at a point
4. Rate of onset of the event
5. Predictability of the event

By causing actor

Natural hazard

Main article: Natural disaster

Damage to valuable human interests can occur due to phenomena and processes of the natural environment. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, volcanoes and tsunami have threatened people, society, the natural environment, and the built environment, particularly more vulnerable people, throughout history, and in some cases, on a day-to-day basis. According to the Red Cross, each year 130,000 people are killed, 90,000 are injured and 140 million are affected by unique events known as natural disasters.

Potentially dangerous phenomena which are natural or predominantly natural (for example, exceptions are intentional floods) can be classified in these categories:

• Meteorological and hydrological hazards, e.g. lightning, storm, flood, sandstorm, fog, rogue wave, tsunami, snow, limnic eruption, cold wave, heat wave
• Geological hazards
  • Earthquake
  • Volcanism, which can cause a wide range of events, such as lava flow and ash fall^[16]
  • Surface or near-surface events, especially erosion and mass wasting (e.g. landslide)
• Extraterrestrial hazards, e.g. solar storm, impact event

Natural hazards can be influenced by human actions in different ways and to varying degrees, e.g. land-use change, drainage and construction. Humans play a central role in the existence of natural hazards because "it is only when people and their possessions get in the way of natural processes that hazard exists".

A natural hazard can be considered as a geophysical event when it occurs in extremes and a human factor is involved that may present a risk. There may be an acceptable variation of magnitude which can vary from the estimated normal or average range with upper and lower limits or thresholds. In these extremes, the natural occurrence may become an event that presents a risk to the environment or people. For example, above-average wind speeds resulting in a tropical depression or hurricane according to intensity measures on the Saffir–Simpson scale will provide an extreme natural event that may be considered a hazard.

Seismic hazard

Surface motion map for a hypothetical earthquake on the northern portion of the Hayward Fault Zone and its presumed northern extension, the Rodgers Creek Fault Zone

A seismic hazard is the probability that an earthquake will occur in a given geographic area, within a given window of time, and with ground motion intensity exceeding a given threshold. With a hazard thus estimated, seismic risk can be assessed and included in such areas as building codes for standard buildings, designing larger buildings and infrastructure projects, land use planning and determining insurance rates.

Tsunamis can be caused by geophysical hazards, such as in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

Although generally a natural phenomenon, earthquakes can sometimes be induced by human interventions, such as injection wells, large underground nuclear explosions, excavation of mines, or reservoirs.

Volcanic hazard

A schematic diagram shows some of the many ways volcanoes can cause problems for those nearby.

A volcanic hazard is the probability a volcanic eruption or related geophysical event will occur in a given geographic area and within a specified window of time. The risk that can be associated with a volcanic hazard depends on the proximity and vulnerability of an asset or a population of people near to where a volcanic event might occur.

Anthropogenic hazard

Anthropogenic hazards, or human-induced hazards, are "induced entirely or predominantly by human activities and choices". These can be societal, technological or environmental hazards.

Technological hazard

Technological hazards are created by the possibility of failure associated with human technology (including emerging technologies), which can also impact the economy, health and national security.

For example, technological hazards can arise from the following events:

• Transport accidents: traffic collisions, navigation accidents, rail accidents, aviation accidents
• Nuclear materials-related accidents: nuclear plant accidents, nuclear weapon accidents and other nuclear accidents
• Chemical accidents and accidental explosions
• Mining accidents
• Space accidents
• Technological failures (including those that affect information and communications technology, such as cybersecurity threats) can cause disruptions to the energy industry (e.g. power outages), telecommunications (e.g. Internet outage), healthcare, banking, transportation, food supply, water supply and other important services.
• Structural failures or construction accidents

A mechanical hazard is any hazard involving a machine or industrial process. Motor vehicles, aircraft, and air bags pose mechanical hazards. Compressed gases or liquids can also be considered a mechanical hazard. Hazard identification of new machines and/or industrial processes occurs at various stages in the design of the new machine or process. These hazard identification studies focus mainly on deviations from the intended use or design and the harm that may occur as a result of these deviations. These studies are regulated by various agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Engineering hazards occur when human structures fail (e.g. building or structural collapse, bridge failures, dam failures) or the materials used in their construction prove to be hazardous.

Societal hazard

Societal hazards can arise from civil disorders, explosive remnants of war, violence, crowd accidents, financial crises, etc. However, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Hazard Definition & Classification Review (Sendai Framework 2015 - 2030) specifically excludes armed conflict from the anthropogenic hazard category, as these hazards are already recognised under international humanitarian law.

Waste disposal

In managing waste many hazardous materials are put in the domestic and commercial waste stream. In part this is because modern technological living uses certain toxic or poisonous materials in the electronics and chemical industries. Which, when they are in use or transported, are usually safely contained or encapsulated and packaged to avoid any exposure. In the waste stream, the waste products exterior or encapsulation breaks or degrades and there is a release and exposure to hazardous materials into the environment, for people working in the waste disposal industry, those living around sites used for waste disposal or landfill and the general environment surrounding such sites.

Socionatural hazard

There are different ways to group hazards by origin. The definition by UNDRR states: "Hazards may be natural, anthropogenic or socionatural in origin." The socionatural hazards are those that are "associated with a combination of natural and anthropogenic factors, including environmental degradation and climate change".

Climate hazard

See also: Effects of climate change

The term climate hazard or climatic hazard is used in the context of climate change, for example in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. These are hazards that stem from climate-related events such as wildfires, floods, droughts, sea level rise.

Climate hazards in the context of water include: Increased temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns between the wet and dry season (increased rainfall variability) and sea level rise. The reason why increasing temperatures is listed here as a climate hazard is because "warming temperatures may result in higher evapotranspiration, in turn leading to drier soils".

Waterborne diseases are also connected to climate hazards.

Climate hazards can combine with other hazards and result in compound event losses (see also loss and damage). For example, the climate hazard of heat can combine with the hazard of poor air quality. Or the climate hazard flooding can combine with poor water quality.

Climate scientists have pointed out that climate hazards affect different groups of people differently, depending on their climate change vulnerability: There are "factors that make people and groups vulnerable (e.g., poverty, uneven power structures, disadvantage and discrimination due to, for example, social location and the intersectionality or the overlapping and compounding risks from ethnicity or racial discrimination, gender, age, or disability, etc.)".

By physical nature

Biological hazard

Main article: Biological hazard

Biological hazards, also known as biohazards, originate in biological processes of living organisms and pose threats to the health of humans, the security of property, or the environment.

Biological hazards include pathogenic microorganisms, such as viruses and bacteria, epidemics, pandemics, parasites, pests, animal attacks, venomous animals, biological toxins and foodborne illnesses.

For example, naturally occurring bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella are well known pathogens, and a variety of measures have been taken to limit human exposure to these microorganisms through food safety, good personal hygiene, and education. The potential for new biological hazards also exists through the discovery of new microorganisms and the development of new genetically modified (GM) organisms. The use of new GM organisms is regulated by various governmental agencies. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) controls GM plants that produce or resist pesticides (i.e. Bt corn and Roundup ready crops). The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates GM plants that will be used as food or for medicinal purposes.

Biological hazards can include medical waste or samples of a microorganism, virus or toxin (from a biological source) that can affect health. Many biological hazards are associated with food, including certain viruses, parasites, fungi, bacteria, and plant and seafood toxins. Pathogenic Campylobacter and Salmonella are common foodborne biological hazards. The hazards from these bacteria can be avoided through risk mitigation steps such as proper handling, storing, and cooking of food. Diseases can be enhanced by human factors such as poor sanitation or by processes such as urbanization.

Chemical hazard

Main article: Chemical hazard

A chemical can be considered a hazardous material if by its intrinsic properties it can cause harm or danger to humans, property, or the environment. Health hazards associated with chemicals are dependent on the dose or amount of exposure to the chemical. For example, iodine in the form of potassium iodate is used to produce iodised salt. When applied at a rate of 20  mg of potassium iodate per 1000 mg of table salt, the chemical is beneficial in preventing goitre, while iodine intakes of 1200–9500  mg in one dose has been known to cause death. Some chemicals have a cumulative biological effect, while others are metabolically eliminated over time. Other chemical hazards may depend on concentration or cumulative quantity for their effects.

Some harmful chemicals occur naturally in certain geological formations, such as arsenic. Other chemicals include products with commercial uses, such as agricultural and industrial chemicals, as well as products developed for home use.

A variety of chemical hazards have been identified. However, every year companies produce more new chemicals to fill new needs or to take the place of older, less effective chemicals. Laws, such as the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act in the US, require protection of human health and the environment for any new chemical introduced. In the US, the EPA regulates new chemicals that may have environmental impacts (i.e., pesticides or chemicals released during a manufacturing process), while the FDA regulates new chemicals used in foods or as drugs. The potential hazards of these chemicals can be identified by performing a variety of tests before the authorization of usage. The number of tests required and the extent to which the chemicals are tested varies, depending on the desired usage of the chemical. Chemicals designed as new drugs must undergo more rigorous tests than those used as pesticides.

Pesticides, which are normally used to control unwanted insects and plants, may cause a variety of negative effects on non-target organisms. DDT can build up, or bioaccumulate, in birds, resulting in thinner-than-normal eggshells, which can break in the nest. The organochlorine pesticide dieldrin has been linked to Parkinson's disease. Corrosive chemicals like sulfuric acid, which is found in car batteries and research laboratories, can cause severe skin burns. Many other chemicals used in industrial and laboratory settings can cause respiratory, digestive, or nervous system problems if they are inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through the skin. The negative effects of other chemicals, such as alcohol and nicotine, have been well documented.

Organohalogens are a family of synthetic organic molecules which all contain atoms of one of the halogens. Such materials include PCBs, dioxins, DDT, Freon and many others. Although considered harmless when first produced, many of these compounds are now known to have profound physiological effects on many organisms including man. Many are also fat soluble and become concentrated through the food chain.

Radioactive or electromagnetic hazard

See also: Electromagnetic radiation and health

Radioactive materials produce ionizing radiation which may be very harmful to living organisms. Damage from even a short exposure to radioactivity may have long-term adverse health consequences.

Thermal or fire hazard

See also: Occupational heat stress

Fire hazard

Further information: Fire safety § Common fire hazards

An active flame front of the Zaca Fire

Threats to fire safety are commonly referred to as fire hazards. A fire hazard may include a situation that increases the likelihood of a fire or may impede escape in the event a fire occurs.

Casualties resulting from fires, regardless of their source or initial cause, can be aggravated by inadequate emergency preparedness. Such hazards as a lack of accessible emergency exits, poorly marked escape routes, or improperly maintained fire extinguishers or sprinkler systems may result in many more deaths and injuries than might occur with such protections.

Kinetic hazard

Kinetic energy is involved in hazards associated with noise, falling, or vibration.

By type of damage

Health hazard

GHS hazard pictograms for health hazards.

See also: Disease and Injury

Hazards that would affect the health of exposed persons, usually having an acute or chronic illness as the consequence. Fatality would not normally be an immediate consequence. Health hazards may cause measurable changes in the body which are generally indicated by the development of signs and symptoms in the exposed persons, or non-measurable, subjective symptoms.

Ergonomic hazard

Main article: Ergonomic hazard

Ergonomic hazards are physical conditions that may pose a risk of injury to the musculoskeletal system, such as the muscles or ligaments of the lower back, tendons or nerves of the hands/wrists, or bones surrounding the knees. Ergonomic hazards include things such as awkward or extreme postures, whole-body or hand/arm vibration, poorly designed tools, equipment, or workstations, repetitive motion, and poor lighting. Ergonomic hazards occur in both occupational and non-occupational settings such as in workshops, building sites, offices, home, school, or public spaces and facilities.

Occupational hazard

See also: Control banding and Occupational exposure banding

Construction workers at height without appropriate safety equipment

An occupational hazard is a hazard experienced in the workplace. This encompasses many types of hazards, including chemical hazards, biological hazards (biohazards), psychosocial hazards, and physical hazards. In the United States, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) conduct workplace investigations and research addressing workplace health and safety hazards resulting in guidelines. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) establishes enforceable standards to prevent workplace injuries and illnesses. In the EU, a similar role is taken by EU-OSHA.

Psychosocial hazard

Main article: Psychosocial hazard

Psychological or psychosocial hazards are hazards that affect the psychological well-being of people, including their ability to participate in a work environment among other people. Psychosocial hazards are related to the way work is designed, organized, and managed, as well as the economic and social contexts of work, and are associated with psychiatric, psychological, and/or physical injury or illness. Linked to psychosocial risks are issues such as occupational stress and workplace violence, which are recognized internationally as major challenges to occupational health and safety.

Environmental hazard

The international pictogram for environmentally hazardous materials.

There are two widely used meanings for environmental hazards; one is that they are hazards to the natural environment (biomes or ecosystems), and the other is hazards of an environment that are normally present in the specific environment and are dangerous to people present in that environment.

Well known examples of hazards to the environment include potential oil spills, water pollution, slash and burn deforestation, air pollution, ground fissures, and build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide. They may apply to a particular part of the environment (slash and burn deforestation) or to the environment as a whole (carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere)..

Similarly, a hazard of an environment may be inherent in the whole of that environment, like a drowning hazard is inherent to the general underwater environment, or localised, like potential shark attack is a hazard of those parts of the ocean where sharks that are likely to attack people are likely to exist.

An active volcano may be a hazard to the environment, whether natural or artificial, and at the same time a hazard in and of the environment.

Property

See also: Property insurance and Property crime

Cultural property

Cultural property can be damaged, lost or destroyed by different events or processes, including war, vandalism, theft, looting, transport accident, water leak, human error, natural disaster, fire, pests, pollution and progressive deterioration.

By status

Hazards are sometimes classified into three modes or statuses:

• Dormant—The situation environment is currently affected. For instance, a hillside may be unstable, with the potential for a landslide, but there is nothing below or on the hillside that could be affected.
• Armed—People, property, or environment are in potential harm's way.
• Active—A harmful incident involving the hazard has actually occurred. Often this is referred to not as an "active hazard" but as an accident, emergency, incident, or disaster.

Analysis and management

Hierarchy of hazard controls: Those hazard control methods at the top of the graphic are potentially more effective and protective than those at the bottom. Following this hierarchy of controls normally leads to the implementation of inherently safer systems, where the risk of illness or injury has been substantially reduced.

A range of methodologies are used to assess hazards and to manage them:

• Hazard analysis – Method for assessing risk
• Hazard analysis and critical control points – Systematic preventive approach to food safety (HACCP)
• Hazard and operability study – Study of risks in a plan or operation (HAZOP)
• Hierarchy of hazard controls – System used in industry to eliminate or minimize exposure to hazards

Hazard symbol

Skull and crossbones, a common symbol for poison and other sources of lethal danger (GHS hazard pictograms)

Hazard symbols are universally recognized symbols designed to alert individuals to the presence of hazardous or dangerous materials, locations, or conditions. These include risks associated with electromagnetic fields, electric currents, toxic chemicals, explosive substances, and radioactive materials. Their design and use are often governed by laws and standards organizations to ensure clarity and consistency. Hazard symbols may vary in color, background, borders, or accompanying text to indicate specific dangers and levels of risk, such as toxicity classes. These symbols provide a quick, universally understandable visual warning that transcends language barriers, making them more effective than text-based warnings in many situations.