"The phrase “Too Big to Fail” entered our vernacular last fall during the financial crisis that involved several large banking and insurance firms. The concept is that these institutions cannot be allowed to fail because of the resulting wide-reaching, negative consequences.
Engineers are very familiar with this concept. The phrase “Too crucial to fail” well describes the responsibility we feel for the lives that are affected by our designs. We are reminded of this each time a failure of a part of our infrastructure causes a loss of life, loss of commerce, or a general loss of public well-being. Engineers need to take seriously our primary ethical canon of “protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the public...”