Helga Nowotny

Uncertainty is our Moriarity. It is clever and cunning, always ready to do us and our plans in. That is the introduction to The Cunning of Uncertainty. The rest of the book is a survey of many of the truly innumerable ways the future is unpredictable, or if it appears to be predictable, actually isn’t.

Along the way, Nowotny treats us to a tour of societal complexity. Everything we discover or invent ups the level of uncertainty. Far from answering eternal questions, our knowledge continually puts more and more topics deeper into the realm of uncertainty. From genetics to the Big Bang to the magic of derivatives in the global economy, everything is far more uncertain today. And will be more uncertain tomorrow.

In a survey of predictability, she spends a lot of time on stats. Big Data takes our obsession about individuality and personalization and spits out numbers that account for our actions with horrifying accuracy. It turns out we don’t have to drive ourselves crazy understanding the why. All we need understand is the what, and correct predictions will follow. Risk management is control of control of the system. From sensors signaling wear and tear to security warnings everywhere, we try to narrow the range of activity to be predictable as the systems reach levels of complexity never considered. It doesn’t help that humans are terrible at assessing risk. We drive our children everywhere to avoid abduction, when the odds of dying in a car accident are immensely greater. We buy high and sell low, and don’t know when to treat a friend like a friend and an opponent like an opponent.

Nowotny likes to say there is only one certainty – death. But there is another – uncertainty. The only thing certain is change, and even death is just a component of change.

The book comes to no conclusion, leaves none the wiser about how to deal with life, the universe and everything, or even how to comport ourselves within it. It can all be boiled down to an old saying: Man plans, God laughs. The Cunning of Certainty makes no progress from there.

David Wineberg… (meer)