ON WAYS AND MECHANISMS TO REDUCE THE SCALE OF RISK IN THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY: FROM RISK COMPENSATION TO ITS PREVENTION

Abstract

The article proposes a solution to the problem of riskiness in a society where the most important resource is the knowledge and advantages of high technologies. Methods for solving the problem, seen in the contradiction between the predicted expectations of the results and the practice of implementing these results, are proposed. Risk, as it is shown, has acquired the status of an ontological characteristic of the knowledge society. The emergence of risks is indicated through the resonance of the application of high technologies, the new organization of the world. It is shown that the concentration of risks is a prerequisite for the «boomerang effect» and leads to their universalization and globalization. Feedback (which is associated with the growth of the «risk mass», its accumulation) again becomes the beginning of risk production. Having calculated the risk, having determined its boundaries and potential, science reorients its efforts, transferring them to the sphere of decision-making. The project form of research organization and the interdisciplinarity of research projects as a comprehensive assessment of results and consequences minimize the uncertainty of risk-related decisions by integrating the state of knowledge and research activities and taking into account the expectations of interested social actors.

Keywords

• risk
• danger
• riskiness
• risk potential
• feedback
• decision making
• uncertainty
• project form of research
• social knowledge
• problem-oriented knowledge
• social evaluation of technology
• interdisciplinarity