Deciding in the dark.
Every decision-making tool takes the same first step: assemble all the information.
But what if you have to decide before all the data is in?
Take climate change; politicians won’t commit to action without complete and perfect proof, which they won’t get… until it’s too late.
So how do you decide what to do without information? By choosing the FUTURE you want and working backwards to discover what you must do to make it happen.
If we break the climate issue down to two options (ACT or RELAX) and two possibilities (climate change is REAL or FAKE) then consider two resulting outcomes (the BEST or WORST case scenarios) we get eight (2x2x2) FUTURES to choose from:
(Note this covers every aspect of the current ‘debate’ and then some: so far it’s been the disaster of future #4 verses the horror of future #6.)
Personally, I’d wish for #7 but it seems far-fetched, so I’d settle for #3 or #1 and my only shot at either of those is to ACT. Of course, that means risking futures #2 or #4, either of which is preferable to #6 (which is so bad it actually includes all of #4) and the only way to avoid that is to ACT.
So yeah, I’d risk destroying jobs and disrupting economies if it meant protecting my grandkids from potential environmental, social and economic disaster. Using this technique, you can (without perfect and complete information) make decisions you (and future generations) can live with.
So why can’t our politicians?
Because they’re so fixated on Who Is Right they’ve not realised Who Can’t Afford To Be Wrong.
