I’m fascinated by how people make decisions when faced with lots of unknowns, such as when they pick a presidential candidate to support.
The usual method, as far as I can tell, is to pick what you think is the most important of the unknowns, take your best guess about it, and base your entire decision on that one factor. For example, you might say, “That candidate would be better at boosting the economy.” But you don’t really know. Even the experts don’t know.
The “guessing about unknowns” approach makes sense if you can reliable assign odds to the unknown. In reality, that’s rarely the case. So I take a different approach. I make my decision entirely on the elements I know for sure.
Take the war in Iraq as an example for this method of decision making. While I have a preference for leaving soon, I have no way of knowing whether that makes the world a safer or more dangerous place in the long run. I’ve heard good arguments both ways. But I do know for certain that fewer American soldiers would be targets if they left. And I know that staying is a lot more expensive than leaving. Anything else I think I “know” about Iraq is a hunch at best. So based on what I know for sure, I favor an early pull-out.
On the economy, immigration, health care, and the handling of special interest groups, I have no idea if Obama or Clinton or McCain would handle things better. I don’t even know if the liberals would raise my taxes more than the conservative. Those are all complete unknowns to me.
So what are the knowns? Here’s my starter list:
1. A President Obama would a huge step toward racial healing.
2. A President H. Clinton would be a symbolic gain for women, but it wouldn’t be a clean win because her husband would be seen as highly influential in making it happen.
2. A President Clinton would be scandal bait for the press.
3. A 71-year old man like McCain is mentally slower and less flexible than a younger person, and more likely to have his job performance impacted by a major illness.
4. McCain would nominate more conservative judges to the Supreme Court compared to either Clinton or Obama.
5. Obama and Clinton would remove troops from Iraq sooner than McCain.
I’m sure this list needs to be longer. Feel free to add to it. And watch the comments to see how often people say they know things that are clearly unknowable.
[Update: In a prior post I told you that last year I promised a friend who raises funds for McCain that if the surge worked, I would donate $1,000 to the campaign. While the jury is still out on whether it “worked” in any lasting and meaningful way, I decided against weaseling out of my promise. I donated $1,000 to John McCain. But I didn’t feel good about it.]