Don Rumsfeld and Keynes on Probability

http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=1928 ^ | William M. Briggs

[mattstat]

In 2003, ex-sailor and then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, said the following:

As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

Many in the mainstream press chuckled warmly upon hearing this. “What a typical, right-wing dolt!” they thought to themselves. Some said so out loud. For a brief while, it was enough to induce a laugh among our betters to merely say, “Unknown unknowns.” It might still work. Try it.

Civilian reporter Hart Seely was so tickled that he arranged Rumsfeld’s words in the form of verse. He did so because he thought that the words resembled “jazzy, impromptu riffs.”

Luckily, Mr Seely was known as a “humorist”, so his readers knew that they should laugh. And so they did. (Read a sample of verbal chuckles accompanying this YouTube video.)

However, not only was Mr Rumsfeld right in what he said, he expressed what he said beautifully and concisely. Worse news for our cultural guardians, it turns out that Rumsfeld was echoing the sainted John Maynard Keynes.

In 1937, Keynes said:...

[hecht]

Rumsfeld’s statement was brilliant, and will be cited in texts of the future.

[Rummyfan]

As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

One of my favorite Rumsfeld quotes!

[Lucky Dog]

In the words of Ronald Reagan:

Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.

I wonder if that qualifies as known unknowns or unknown unknowns...

[jnsun]

Rumsfeld’s statement was brilliant, and will be cited in texts of the future.

It was indeed, and I recite it regularly. And what a putdown of the truly truly ignorant/arrogant press, which he was good at, suffering none of their immature, irresponsible, attitude.

- there are things we know we know, things we know we don't know, and things we don't know we don't know -

Beautiful!

Johnny Suntrade

[2nd Bn, 11th Mar]

We used to discuss known unknowns and unknown unknowns in the Program Management Course at Fort Belvoir’s Defense Systems Management College.

BTW, my favorite Rummyism was when he was asked by some innocent young reporterette “why the US was dropping these really big bombs on the Taliban”? The SecDef’s answer: “To kill them”.