Saturday, 8 October 2022
The grey wastes of uncertainty
We live in strange and dishonest times. Over the past few weeks, I’ve read two completely different accounts of the Ukraine conflict. Both were well-written, very readable and full of what appeared to be a profound interest in military affairs.
I haven’t saved links to either piece because there is so much similar material around it hardly seemed worth it. Radically different opinions on the conflict are common enough to treat with a shrug. It depends on what we choose to find.
There is an obvious lesson here. It is surely worth reminding ourselves how much more attractive positive opinions are over the grey wastes of uncertainty. Yet the grey wastes of uncertainty are where we spend much of our lives when there is a lack of hard data overlaid with rampant propaganda. It is possible to pretend otherwise, but that’s it.
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4 comments:
I decided early on that I'd believe only things that both sides said, or - even better - things that both sides didn't say.
Thus neither side said that Kiev had fallen therefore Kiev hadn't fallen. Later, both sides said the Moskva had sunk so she had indeed sunk.
Now, I suppose, both sides agree on various small towns having changed hands (in the papers such towns are either "key" or "strategic" but I ignore such piffle) and that there's been an explosion on the road bridge over the Kerch Strait.
My haul of facts is therefore modest but I have the great advantage over the pontificators that I don't claim that I understand either side's war aims. It's easy, I suggest, to infer Putin's initial war aims but ever since the charge to Kiev failed I have no idea what he thinks he's doing.
As for the gas pipes in the Baltic - Uncle Sam 's doing , I'd think, evincing a deep desire to hold Germany down. Remember "if you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds follow"?
The same applies to the origins of Covid, the efficacy and risks of vaccines, what politicians are really like, and everything that comes under the heading "economics". I suppose it should be possible to view life as a huge set of more-or-less unfalsified hypotheses, but the pleasure of verification - or supposed verification - is too seductive for most.
And I wonder what the evolutionary advantage of confirmation bias is. It's an incredibly strong tendency, that desire to blank out contrary evidence once we have decided what we think is going on. But it definitely has the potential to run us into difficulties in dealing with reality.
" Yet the grey wastes of uncertainty are where we spend much of our lives when there is a lack of hard data overlaid with rampant propaganda. "
...and really there is little immediate harm to ourselves except whatever concern we project on distant events. We want (but don't always get) certainty about our own lives. Even when we vote in a new Government there is no certain outcome, and truly very little we can do about it except wait it out until next time.
dearieme - it sounds as if my haul of facts is equally modest. I'm not even sure about the gas pipeline. The US does seem to be plausible, but what the aim of it might be in another uncertainty.
Sam - there probably is an evolutionary advantage of confirmation bias such as tribal cohesion and reduced brain activity which would translate into fewer calories used in coming to decisions. We have solved the calorie problem but are still stuck with the confirmation bias.
DJ - and because there is little immediate harm here, there is no pressing need to reach conclusions based on inadequate information. Of course, the media are good at generating a false sense of proximity to such events - even more so than in the past.
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