the.com/contingency
the universe's fine print, where everything that happened almost didn't
means A possible future event you can't be sure will happen, so you make a backup plan for it just in case.
from From the Latin contingere, 'to touch, to befall,' built from con- (together) and tangere (to touch) — the same tangere that gives us 'tangent' and 'contact.' The idea is of something that merely brushes against actuality: it touches the world only if circumstances let it. By the time it reached English in the late Middle Ages through the philosophers' Latin contingentia, it meant whatever is true but didn't have to be — the opposite of necessary. The modern 'just-in-case' sense, as in a contingency plan, leans on that same logic: planning for things that might touch us, but might not.
- military origin
- Pentagon plans for invasions that may never come
- philosophy
- contingent things could have been otherwise; necessary things couldn't
- budget habit
- smart projects reserve money for the unknown unknowns
- logic term
- a statement true in some cases, false in others
- etymology
- from Latin for touching together, things falling into contact
operation fortitude — d-day deception plan: 1944 fake army group to convince nazis invasion was elsewhere
continuity of government — us classified bunker protocol: presidential succession if washington dc destroyed
operation unthinkable — churchill's 1945 contingency plan: invade soviet union if they didn't leave eastern europe