Townhall.com
Walter Williams
March 28, 2018

Here's a question for you: In 1950, would it have been possible for anyone to know all of the goods and services that we would have at our disposal 50 years later? For example, who would have thought that we'd have cellphones, Bluetooth technology, small powerful computers, LASIK and airplanes with 525-passenger seating capacity? This list could be extended to include thousands of goods and services that could not have been thought of in 1950. In the face of this gross human ignorance, who should be in control of precursor goods and services? Seeing as it's impossible for anyone to predict the future, any kind of governmental regulation should be extremely light-handed, so as not to sabotage technological advancement.

Compounding our ignorance is the fact that much of what we think we know is not true. Scientometrics is the study of measuring and analyzing science, technology and innovation. It holds that many of the "facts" you know have a half-life of about 50 years. Let's look at a few examples.

You probably learned that Pluto is a planet. But since August 2006, Pluto has been considered a dwarf planet. It's just another object in the Kuiper belt.

Because dinosaurs were seen as members of the class Reptilia, they were thought to be coldblooded. But recent research suggests that dinosaurs were fast-metabolizing endotherms whose activities were unconstrained by temperature.

Years ago, experts argued that increased K-12 spending and lower pupil-teacher ratios would boost students' academic performance. It turned out that some of the worst academic performance has been at schools spending the most money and having the smallest class sizes. Washington, D.C., spends more than $29,000 per student every year, and the teacher-student ratio is 1-to-13; however, its students are among the nation's poorest-performing pupils.

At one time, astronomers considered the size limit for a star to be 150 times the mass of our sun. But recently, a star (R136a1) was discovered that is 265 times the mass of our sun and had a birth weight that was 320 times that of our sun.

If you graduated from medical school in 1950, about half of what you learned is either wrong or outdated. For an interesting story on all this, check out Reason magazine.

Ignorance can be devastating. Say that you recently purchased a house. Was it the best deal you could have gotten? Was there some other house within your budget that would have needed fewer extensive repairs 10 years later and had more likable neighbors and a better and safer environment for your children? What about the person you married? Was there another person available to you who would have made for a more pleasing and compatible spouse? Though these are important questions, the most intelligent answer you can give to all of them is: "I don't know." If you don't know, who should be in charge of making those decisions? Would you delegate the responsibility to Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump, Ben Carson or some other national or state official?

You might say, "Stop it, Williams! Congressmen and other public officials are not making such monumental decisions affecting my life." Try this. Suppose you are a 22-year-old healthy person. Rather than be forced to spend $3,000 a year for health insurance and have $7,000 deducted from your salary for Social Security, you'd prefer investing that money to buy equipment to start a landscaping business. Which would be the best use of the $10,000 you earned -- purchasing health insurance and paying into Social Security or starting up a landscaping business? More importantly, who would be better able to make that decision -- you or members of the United States Congress?

The bottom line is that ignorance is omnipresent. The worst kind of ignorance is not knowing just how ignorant we are. That leads to the devastating pretense of knowledge that's part and parcel of the vision of intellectual elites and politicians.

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That leads to the devastating pretense of knowledge that's part and parcel of the vision of intellectual elites and politicians.

And then they claim essentially what Williams is saying - that there are some things no one knows or can know, and that they (the liberal elites) are only human and can't be blamed when they come up with decisions that turn out to be wrong.

At which point they again begin insisting that whether proposed policies make sense or not, Something must be done!, and thank God we have such brave politicians who are brave enough to bravely do Something! even if it doesn't make sense and the taxpayer will spend the next few decades cleaning up the mess.

It's bad enough to want to have your cake and eat it, too. These people have built entire careers out of having their cake, eating it too, and insisting that the taxpayer owes them yet another cake because the cake in the refrigerator has already been virtually consumed and the cake in their stomachs is just a drop in the bucket.

So somebody made an article about Rumsfeld's unknown unknowns. LOL

"One of the greatest ironies of modernity is that those who profess the greatest faith in science are those who understand it the least."

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Originally posted by Crom:
"One of the greatest ironies of modernity is that those who profess the greatest faith in science are those who understand it the least."

Ahh, modernism; where the old traditional is considered outdated for the new.

And, darn it lost my train of thought.

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Originally posted by JALLEN:... Suppose you are a 22-year-old healthy person. Rather than be forced to spend $3,000 a year for health insurance and have $7,000 deducted from your salary for Social Security, you'd prefer investing that money to buy equipment to start a landscaping business. Which would be the best use of the $10,000 you earned -- purchasing health insurance and paying into Social Security or starting up a landscaping business?

So our 22 yr old opens said Landscaping business rather than getting health insurance and on the second day of this new business, while clearing a clog in his lawnmower, he slips and off goes 3 fingers. Good news is, they are recovered and able to be reattached, but.....who pays the ER, hospital bills and follow-up doctor visits? Not our 22 yr old, all his money is in his business.

Or do we just deny said 22 yr old medical care because he has no money?

(BTW, average cost to reattach a single digit is between $20,000 to $60,000)

"That's some catch, that Catch-22,......It's the best there is,"

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...Compounding our ignorance is the fact that much of what we think we know is not true. Scientometrics is the study of measuring and analyzing science, technology and innovation. It holds that many of the "facts" you know have a half-life of about 50 years. Let's look at a few examples....

When I was starting college, a then noted scientist commented to me "what science did we think was true 50 years ago that we now know is false. And, what science to we belve to be true today that in 50 years we will laugh at how wrong we were".

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Originally posted by Scoutmaster:

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...Compounding our ignorance is the fact that much of what we think we know is not true. Scientometrics is the study of measuring and analyzing science, technology and innovation. It holds that many of the "facts" you know have a half-life of about 50 years. Let's look at a few examples....

When I was starting college, a then noted scientist commented to me "what science did we think was true 50 years ago that we now know is false. And, what science to we belve to be true today that in 50 years we will laugh at how wrong we were".

What is funny is to look at the predictions from 50 years ago to see how much of that was accurate.

Not only was much of what they thought they knew wrong, but almost all of what they didn’t know was, too.

Interesting article, but I guess he never read any science fiction.

And somebody once thought bacon was bad for you. Sheesh.
Bacon is essential to life.

I am still waiting on my flying car. VTOL, please. My driveway is short.

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Originally posted by Southflorida-law:

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Originally posted by JALLEN:... Suppose you are a 22-year-old healthy person. Rather than be forced to spend $3,000 a year for health insurance and have $7,000 deducted from your salary for Social Security, you'd prefer investing that money to buy equipment to start a landscaping business. Which would be the best use of the $10,000 you earned -- purchasing health insurance and paying into Social Security or starting up a landscaping business?

So our 22 yr old opens said Landscaping business rather than getting health insurance and on the second day of this new business, while clearing a clog in his lawnmower, he slips and off goes 3 fingers. Good news is, they are recovered and able to be reattached, but.....who pays the ER, hospital bills and follow-up doctor visits? Not our 22 yr old, all his money is in his business.

Or do we just deny said 22 yr old medical care because he has no money?

(BTW, average cost to reattach a single digit is between $20,000 to $60,000)

"That's some catch, that Catch-22,......It's the best there is,"

Maybe.

But more likely: So our 22-year old opens said Landscaping business rather than getting health insurance and works diligently at it with entrepreneurial fervor for the next 40 years. During that time he builds the business into a multi-million dollar residential and commercial landscaping/lawn care business servicing hundreds of residential, commercial, and civic customers. Over the course of those 40 years he employed over a thousand full and part-time people, providing family revenue and insurance support for several dozen families and bolstering the local economy.

But, oh sure. The wise government officials and bureaucrats know better what the 22-year old should do with his money. You can go with that. Go ahead.

As for me, I'd be happy if I was never forced to pay FICA and was allowed to just keep my hard-earned money -- I neither need nor want Social Security; I'll NEVER get back all of what I was forced to pay into it, and would've done far, far, far better just putting half that amount into DRIPS for the past 40 years. And fuck this ObamaCare bullshit, too.

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So our 22 yr old opens said Landscaping business rather than getting health insurance and on the second day of this new business, while clearing a clog in his lawnmower, he slips and off goes 3 fingers.

But he can't buy a relatively low cost insurance plan to cover an event such as this.

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Originally posted by egregore:

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So our 22 yr old opens said Landscaping business rather than getting health insurance and on the second day of this new business, while clearing a clog in his lawnmower, he slips and off goes 3 fingers.

But he can't buy a relatively low cost insurance plan to cover an event such as this.

He can set up an HSA, which includes catastrophic medical coverage.

But probably won’t since 22 yos are bullet proof.