The speed and efficiency of the rescue operation around the Selby crash was an example of complexity at its best. The reason why the car and its trailer came off the motorway are not yet known. But the conjunction of the country's fastest rail line and one of its major roads were ultimately summoned up by our demand for speed and efficiency, our impatience with delays and hitches. We expect instant perfection. You see it everywhere.
People have a fit when their computer crashes.
They don't expect it to happen. In low-tech societies, such as Britain in the past, or parts of the developing world today, societies tend to take a more fatalistic attitude to disasters and crises. It doesn't protect them from destitution or suicidal despair. Nor does it stop them doing everything they can to put things right. If we have become impatient with technology which might as well be magic to us, people such as the cattle-herding Fulani of Nigeria and Cameroon make no distinction between magic and technology when they are seeking to cure their livestock.