Been tangling for months with nuances in how we talk about not-knowing. One thing that's now clear is that we use the words "risk" and "uncertainty" to mean a wide range of things depending on context. Two types of inaccuracy seem common: 1) OVERLOADING and 2) APPROPRIATION.

wrote The Uncertainty Mindset (2020) ✹ not-knowing, partial knowledge, idk ✹ 🍕-fan ✹ usually Marseille ✹ more: vaughntan.org ✹ RSS: vaughntan.org/feed.rss

But we also APPROPRIATE "uncertainty" by using the word in ways that do violence to how Knight defined it (as unquantifiable not-knowing). I tried to unpack this idea here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZeqaeYLNMDuWU89rYAuYF_Iz_qOAEyDseosjvDlHATA/edit#  (this is a draft open for public comment)

That essay is the reading for the next @interintellect_ salon. We'll talk about overloading/appropriation, how "uncertainty" is used to describe formal risk, and false comfort. Thu 18 May, 8-10pm CET. On Zoom, open to all. More info + tix: https://interintellect.com/salon/thinking-about-not-knowing-false-advertising/

We often OVERLOAD "risk" with multiple meanings — I've written about this here (though the term "overload" here is a new development): https://vaughntan.org/how-to-think-more-clearly-about-risk

updated and cleaned up for this week's newsletter:
https://uncertaintymindset.substack.com/p/overloading-appropriation