Worst-case thinking
In 2010, at one information security conference, the round table was devoted to pessimistic scenarios. For several hours in a row, prominent security experts scared each other with possible large-scale attacks on communication infrastructure, energy, the economy, coupled with a military strike, and so on and so forth.
My pessimistic scenario was this: in the future, everyone will discuss only pessimistic scenarios.
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The fact is that pessimists do not take much into account. Inflating the principle of caution , they try to imagine the consequences of the most unfortunate set of circumstances and act as if the most unfortunate set of circumstances is most likely. Imagination replaces logic, rumors replace risk analysis, fear prevails over common sense. Society begins to keenly feel its weakness and vulnerability, fear paralyzes citizens. Worst-case thinking makes us vulnerable to terror.
Constantly trying to prevent pessimistic scenarios, we ignore optimal solutions for a number of reasons:
1. Firstly , our goal justifies any means. In ordinary life, every decision made has pros and cons. However, when we try to understand what can go wrong in principle - and then act as if all this is bound to happen - we focus only on hypertrophied, unlikely dangers and at the same time forget to evaluate the expediency of each decision made.
2. Secondly , we use perverse logic. When making any decision, you must justify that it will not lead to a catastrophe under any circumstances. All other issues, including optimality, receive a lower priority.
3. Thirdly , with this approach, it is possible to justify the need for directly contradictory actions.
“If we build a nuclear power plant, it could explode.” If we decide not to build it, fuel and electricity will not be enough for everyone and the world will plunge into darkness and anarchy.
- If you allow flights over the volcanoes of Iceland, the aircraft will fall, people will die. If not allowed, the organs for transplantation will not arrive on time , people will die.
“If we introduce troops into Iraq, we will destabilize the situation in the Middle East, provoking riots and the death of civilians.” If we leave Iraq alone, Saddam Hussein will launch a nuclear strike on the United States.
- If you take control of the Internet, then censorship will destroy all opposition sites. If you do not take control of the Internet, millions of children will be raped and committed suicide.
Even when, based on this logic, we can make an unequivocal choice, as a rule, this is a bad choice. We are afraid of a lot, but something more, something - less. If we aim to eliminate the most terrible scenario, we begin to pay too much attention to the dangers that we tend to exaggerate . Fear in the face of a possible terrorist act overshadows the fear of total control, the elimination of privacy and the devil knows what else; fear and misunderstanding of modern technologies makes society restrain their development; we are afraid of strategic nuclear missiles more than cheap firearms; our children must be protected from any threats at all costs; Hadron Collider can not be built, because it can destroy our planet . Take the script of any box office Hollywood blockbuster - and here you have a ready danger, which society must immediately prevent at all costs.
4. Finally, fourth : worst-case thinking encourages ignorance. Instead of discussing what we understand, we concentrate on what we have no idea about, masking our incompetence with working imagination.
Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Secretary of Defense, once said : “I’m waiting for you,” he said. there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; we are not sure. But “I always read with great interest reports on what could have happened, but was prevented, because we know that there are famous celebrities : things We know about them, we know them. We also know that there are known uncertainties , that is, there are certain things about which we know nothing. But there are also unknown uncertainties — things that we do not know about. that we do not know them "). How do you? And how do you like this: “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” ? Incompetence in and of itself is not a cause for fear; but it becomes very bad for us when we try to imagine trying to compensate for our ignorance.
Moreover, it becomes so bad for us that we are already morally ready for extreme measures. We cannot calmly expect that the gun hanging on the scene will ever fire, we have to act as if the gun should fire the next moment. It seems to be preventing a pessimistic scenario, in fact, we are uncontrollably destabilizing the situation.
The real danger is that our society loses its ability to predict risks. We refuse to calculate the probability , limiting ourselves to finding a potential opportunity . Having no idea what damage is most likely , we gossip about what might break.
Pessimism contributes to the adoption of worthless solutions, unsuccessful system design and security holes. We face some of its consequences directly. For example, in the field of air travel security - the actions of the American organization called the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) often make us laugh and sometimes terrify. After all, you can shoot first-graders from an airplane , you can blow up badly parked cars , right? Security does not happen much!
You can protect yourself from everything in the world. You can generally refuse to fly because the plane can fall. You can lock children in an apartment outside so that a pedophile doesn't get to them. You can break off all contact with other people, because a person can hurt another person. Stephen Hawking would prefer to avoid contact with aliens , because aliens can be unfriendly to us tuned - does this mean that he proposes to eliminate radio and television, so as not to attract attention from space? Discussing only the worst possible coincidences of circumstances, it is easy to bring any thought to the point of absurdity and paranoia.
Frank Füredi, a professor of sociology at the University of Kent, writes : “Worst-case thinking encourages people to be guided by fear in their daily, social and political life. Worst-case thinking deprives a person of a sense of security, leaving instead a feeling of confusion and powerlessness. By spreading the belief that the boundary, the worst cases are the norm, society instills in people the fear of a huge variety of potential threats from which it is impossible to escape. ”
First of all, this plays into the hands of terrorists, because the intimidated population is easy to terrorize - even prevented terrorist attacks reach their goals, such as the incident with a terrorist who blew a bomb under his clothes on the eve of 2010 Christmas , or like an example with a car explosive in Times Square .
By changing anything, we must try not to make life worse than it is now. But at the same time, one should not exaggerate the danger of the probability of which is small. The unlikely coincidence should not be given more attention than it deserves.
The principle called “worst-case thinking” is actually not a principle, it is a cheap trick that allows you to justify your irrational fears. It also helps lazy and biased people to bring at first glance convincing arguments and at the same time do not thoroughly understand the issue. These people adhere to such a position as to ignore counter arguments with a pure heart, so there is no point in talking to them.
My pessimistic scenario was this: in the future, everyone will discuss only pessimistic scenarios.
')
The fact is that pessimists do not take much into account. Inflating the principle of caution , they try to imagine the consequences of the most unfortunate set of circumstances and act as if the most unfortunate set of circumstances is most likely. Imagination replaces logic, rumors replace risk analysis, fear prevails over common sense. Society begins to keenly feel its weakness and vulnerability, fear paralyzes citizens. Worst-case thinking makes us vulnerable to terror.
Constantly trying to prevent pessimistic scenarios, we ignore optimal solutions for a number of reasons:
1. Firstly , our goal justifies any means. In ordinary life, every decision made has pros and cons. However, when we try to understand what can go wrong in principle - and then act as if all this is bound to happen - we focus only on hypertrophied, unlikely dangers and at the same time forget to evaluate the expediency of each decision made.
2. Secondly , we use perverse logic. When making any decision, you must justify that it will not lead to a catastrophe under any circumstances. All other issues, including optimality, receive a lower priority.
3. Thirdly , with this approach, it is possible to justify the need for directly contradictory actions.
“If we build a nuclear power plant, it could explode.” If we decide not to build it, fuel and electricity will not be enough for everyone and the world will plunge into darkness and anarchy.
- If you allow flights over the volcanoes of Iceland, the aircraft will fall, people will die. If not allowed, the organs for transplantation will not arrive on time , people will die.
“If we introduce troops into Iraq, we will destabilize the situation in the Middle East, provoking riots and the death of civilians.” If we leave Iraq alone, Saddam Hussein will launch a nuclear strike on the United States.
- If you take control of the Internet, then censorship will destroy all opposition sites. If you do not take control of the Internet, millions of children will be raped and committed suicide.
Even when, based on this logic, we can make an unequivocal choice, as a rule, this is a bad choice. We are afraid of a lot, but something more, something - less. If we aim to eliminate the most terrible scenario, we begin to pay too much attention to the dangers that we tend to exaggerate . Fear in the face of a possible terrorist act overshadows the fear of total control, the elimination of privacy and the devil knows what else; fear and misunderstanding of modern technologies makes society restrain their development; we are afraid of strategic nuclear missiles more than cheap firearms; our children must be protected from any threats at all costs; Hadron Collider can not be built, because it can destroy our planet . Take the script of any box office Hollywood blockbuster - and here you have a ready danger, which society must immediately prevent at all costs.
4. Finally, fourth : worst-case thinking encourages ignorance. Instead of discussing what we understand, we concentrate on what we have no idea about, masking our incompetence with working imagination.
Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Secretary of Defense, once said : “I’m waiting for you,” he said. there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; we are not sure. But “I always read with great interest reports on what could have happened, but was prevented, because we know that there are famous celebrities : things We know about them, we know them. We also know that there are known uncertainties , that is, there are certain things about which we know nothing. But there are also unknown uncertainties — things that we do not know about. that we do not know them "). How do you? And how do you like this: “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” ? Incompetence in and of itself is not a cause for fear; but it becomes very bad for us when we try to imagine trying to compensate for our ignorance.
Moreover, it becomes so bad for us that we are already morally ready for extreme measures. We cannot calmly expect that the gun hanging on the scene will ever fire, we have to act as if the gun should fire the next moment. It seems to be preventing a pessimistic scenario, in fact, we are uncontrollably destabilizing the situation.
The real danger is that our society loses its ability to predict risks. We refuse to calculate the probability , limiting ourselves to finding a potential opportunity . Having no idea what damage is most likely , we gossip about what might break.
Pessimism contributes to the adoption of worthless solutions, unsuccessful system design and security holes. We face some of its consequences directly. For example, in the field of air travel security - the actions of the American organization called the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) often make us laugh and sometimes terrify. After all, you can shoot first-graders from an airplane , you can blow up badly parked cars , right? Security does not happen much!
You can protect yourself from everything in the world. You can generally refuse to fly because the plane can fall. You can lock children in an apartment outside so that a pedophile doesn't get to them. You can break off all contact with other people, because a person can hurt another person. Stephen Hawking would prefer to avoid contact with aliens , because aliens can be unfriendly to us tuned - does this mean that he proposes to eliminate radio and television, so as not to attract attention from space? Discussing only the worst possible coincidences of circumstances, it is easy to bring any thought to the point of absurdity and paranoia.
Frank Füredi, a professor of sociology at the University of Kent, writes : “Worst-case thinking encourages people to be guided by fear in their daily, social and political life. Worst-case thinking deprives a person of a sense of security, leaving instead a feeling of confusion and powerlessness. By spreading the belief that the boundary, the worst cases are the norm, society instills in people the fear of a huge variety of potential threats from which it is impossible to escape. ”
First of all, this plays into the hands of terrorists, because the intimidated population is easy to terrorize - even prevented terrorist attacks reach their goals, such as the incident with a terrorist who blew a bomb under his clothes on the eve of 2010 Christmas , or like an example with a car explosive in Times Square .
By changing anything, we must try not to make life worse than it is now. But at the same time, one should not exaggerate the danger of the probability of which is small. The unlikely coincidence should not be given more attention than it deserves.
The principle called “worst-case thinking” is actually not a principle, it is a cheap trick that allows you to justify your irrational fears. It also helps lazy and biased people to bring at first glance convincing arguments and at the same time do not thoroughly understand the issue. These people adhere to such a position as to ignore counter arguments with a pure heart, so there is no point in talking to them.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/147737/
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