Comment by Verdex
For a low dimensional space, I think their diagrams make sense. Like, when working with large industrial machines factors that effect safety are probably how close you are to the machine and how fast everything is going and with what urgency.
Even here they have a section on how the safety performance boundary is fuzzy and dynamic.
I wonder though what things look like with super high dimensions. When there are a 100 different things that go into whether or not you're being safe. That boundary's fuzzy and dynamic nature might extend clear across the entire space. And the fact that failures happen due to rare occurrences suggests that we're not starting at a point of safety but actually starting in a danger zone that we've just been lucky enough not to encounter failures for.
100% unit test coverage comes to mind (even for simple getters). Where some might see a slide towards danger as the coverage goes down, another sees more time to verify the properties that really matter. And I don't see why we can't get into the scenario where both are right and wrong in incomparable ways.
>>I wonder though what things look like with super high dimensions.
You need only look to healthcare in the USA. Many, many professionals (some of which you never interact with) handing off patient cases to each other in a very carefully choreographed dance designed to meet legal and regulatory requirements; quality, safety, and care standards; financial responsibilities; and each individual's own personal standards for the quality of care they believe they provide.
In healthcare, we often view risks using the Swiss Cheese Model [1]. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, but the system of checks and balances catches most of them before they reach the patient. Prescriber ordered the wrong dose of medicine in the inpatient setting? Pharmacy intercepts and starts making calls or sending messages to verify. Pharmacy approves the order because "that's what they ordered?" Nursing lays hands and eyes to every medicine administered and can 'stop the line' if they deem appropriate. Not to mention the technical safeguards and guardrails (e.g., clinical decision support systems) that are also supporting everyone involved.
But still, failures happen, and they can be catastrophic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model