Digital resilience

I think the big news about last week's blackout wasn't its duration, but its digital, informational, data-driven, cloud-based, and logistical nature. We all experienced technology dependence. We were left disarmed, frozen, and inoperable. Just think about this: businesses closed and staff were sent home. Hardly anyone could do their jobs.

A decade ago, we could still buy things with cash, call a landline, or look up addresses in a paper directory. Today, we rely on interconnected devices even to open the parking garage door, check a medical history, or send an invoice. The disappearance of the analog world creates an illusion of efficiency. Everything is more optimized. But how is it possible that everything stops working because of a meteorological incident? In economics, it's called inverted network effect That interconnected system that depends on all its nodes functioning, but whose weakness is amplified if just one fails. Electricity is one of those nodes (in addition to the power supply, there are, for example, the cloud, remote access, and geolocation). When a critical node fails, the rest collapse. This is the price of extreme efficiency: optimization and productivity increase the fragility of the system itself. Thus, we have very powerful but much more fragile systems. It's called the fragility economy: a hyper-optimized system that operates in perfect balance until a critical node breaks down. This super-efficiency hides a great exposure to error, cyberattacks, or human and technical error. We have advanced more in speed and efficiency than in security and resilience. We have built systems whose failures multiply in a cascade.

Combating this fragility doesn't require a retreat in innovation, but rather a design that can continue functioning when a critical node fails: hybrid networks (digital and physical), non-digital emergency protocols, proactive cybersecurity, and, above all, preparedness for society and businesses. The 21st century doesn't need more technology. It needs greater digital resilience.