I read with interest an article by Geoffrey Wheatcroft published in New York Times and reproduced in Deccan Chronicle today titled ” A world in denial of what it knows ” .
From the Mayan prophesies of the world ending on 21st Dec 2012 to the intermediate stages towards this scenario like global warming , tsunami , nuclear disasters , forest fires , hurricanes , climate changes ,genetic disorders , massive deforestation , biological epidemics , and even large scale political upheavals , wars , cultural conflicts all stare at us and ask us to take note before it is too late !!.
During the last decade , the world was also in a state of denial about financial melt downs , collapse of the Euro Zone , the rise of communist capitalism in China , global terrorism , the Arab Spring and other middle east popular uprisings , and the rise of middle class in the developing countries .
We have no dearth of Thought Leaders but they do not focus conveniently on the so called ” Unknown Known ” of the decision theory to prevent global disasters – mostly man made and preventable .
According to Geoffrey Wheatcroft , unknown knowns are things that are not all inevitable and are easily knowable or indeed known but people chose to “unknow” . To save this world from future disasters , we need to heavily focus on these “Unknown Knowns ” .