Counterfeit Certainty

Uncertainty is a great marketing tool. Conventional marketing has it that the FUD factor (Fear, Uncertanty, Doubt) is a great way to motivate a prospect to make a decision. The problem is, it's only good for marketing something you don't believe you can get them to believe in. Witness the referendum campaigns (on both sides). What we might want to reflect on is that certainty is a much bigger danger - mainly because other than in the very short term, it doesn't really exist. It's a convenient anaesthetic that the brain craves. Our brains are prediction machines, amd certainty saves them energy. The problem with certainty is that it breeds habits based on complacency, so that when something that is otherwise obvious in retrospect - from the 2008 crisis, to any disruptive technology or event - it takes us by surprise. Certainty is great for commerce - it encourages us to buy, to take on debt and to imagine futures other people sell us rather than craft them ourselves But it's bad for p…