The Voyage of Theseus

The author argues that safety is a property of ongoing activity rather than of the objects that perform it, using the image of a plane swapped mid-voyage to show that a voyage can persist across different vessels. Drawing on Erik Hollnagel's distinction between Safety-I and Safety-II, the piece contends that treating all risks the same way gives an incomplete picture. It extends the idea to cities, which it presents as conduits within a broader network, and to a "lowercase versus uppercase" distinction, holding that movements and practices avoid the fragility of centralized brands and reputations.