JP quoted Rumsfeld at Confused of Calcutta. Rumsfeld doesn't usually deserve comment, but in this case he's a good example of someone allegedly conservative operating under the conceit of knowledge.
He gives three classes:
Known knowns
Known unknowns
Unknown unknowns
The last class devastates the first, so much so it practically destroys Rumsfeld's whole point, if I remember it correctly. I think he was talking about war at the time, and it didn't turn out too well in no small part because some of the nice little known knowns Rumsfeld thought he knew turned out to be an illusion. If you know there are unknown unknowns, you ought to take the next logical step and develop epistemological humility.
The socialists keep proving the point to us over and over; they think they (or some smart expert) can run the economy better than, well, nobody running it- or more precisely, everyone and their demonstrated, though sometimes perplexing, preferences. It seems possible to know, but alas it is not.
So, Rumsfeld appears know this, and can apply it to various leftist plans, but assumes, in the prosecution of his silly plans, that he has placed all his little unknown unknowns in his third category, away from his known knowns, and never shall the two meet. Well, if the Republicans won't develop epistemological humility on their own, they may develop some sort of humility if enough Americans would just stop voting.
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