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I can’t say that my first reaction to a major earthquake would be “let’s go up to the 89th floor and see what that 1.5 million pound ball is doing!”

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It’s part of the observation deck at the top of Taipei 101, so if you’re already up there when an earthquake hits then “let’s go see what the ball is doing” is really your only option aside from sitting down and praying to the gods of civil engineering.

I’d always been irrationally afraid of going through an earthquake in a skyscraper when I lived in Japan, but then I had this exact experience in Taipei and it more or less cured that particular strain of anxiety.

That doesn’t strike me as irrational at all.

Irrational in the sense that I know the geophysical theory is well-understood, the engineering is solid, and the construction practices have been repeatedly proven in real-world scenarios, but what if that one-in-a-billion thing happens and I’m living a future disaster documentary.

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