Demanding certainty
The defenders of the status quo often demand certainty when facing decisions about the future.
It sets up the conditions for doing nothing, because certainty never happens until the future arrives.
It’s much more useful to look at probabilities.
Flipping a fair coin has a 50% chance of coming up heads. That’s a risky bet.
On the other hand, there’s more than a 95% chance that the sea levels in Miami will be significantly higher in ten years. Is that a bet you want to take the other side of?
As soon as we can begin discussing probabilities, we can sit on the same side of the table and refine our estimates and our risk profiles.
But certainty? Certainty is another word for stalling.