Ali
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2015–2017
0:35 · 998K views · Aug 7, 2009
A one-minute clip of Donald Rumsfeld's 'known knowns, unknown unknowns' remarks at a Pentagon briefing.
HN commenters cite it as the source of the known/unknown unknowns framing, sometimes noting he was unfairly ridiculed for it.
3 comments from Hacker News
No, taking a quote of context is not the same as not running a quote with the source prior to publication. The former is unethical, the second is an optional practice. I dont't run quotes by sources when I know that I have recorded it correctly and when I feel certain of the speaker's intent and context. Most photojournalists don't let the subjects see the photos prior to publication. Not just in the past days of film, when it would have been logistically difficult, but even today with digital cameras. Most subjects have strong opinions about what photos capture them nicely. But photographers generally believe that photos capture truth, at least in a limited technical sense. edit: It's worth throwing in a hypothetical cases based on real quotes. Pretend these happened in a private interview that you have taped: - Case 1: "Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?" [0] If you were not a journalist sympathetic to President Bush, you would print this quote ad verbatim (minus the stutter before "is"), because it fits a narrative that Bush is a doofus, even when speaking about our children's education. I think if you ran this by him, Bush would politely request that "is" be changed to "are". But including the quote verbatim isn't a distortion of the truth, it's literally what's on tape. - Case 2: "It depends on what the meaning of is is" [1] Here's a case where a neutral reporter might ask for clarification, because the reporter is genuinely confused. However, I thin
Epistemological point: if from the modern world you dropped in on Christopher Columbus with all your gadgets and tried to explain them, it might sound like magic. If from the modern world you dropped in on a hominid 100k years ago in his cave with all your gadgets and tried to explain them? You'd be a god. Things that exist outside of our ability to have language to describe them are godlike. (There is an open question about whether the set of such things is irreducible or open to conquest at some point in time) If the caveman trapped you and tried to figure out what you were up to? Yes, to him it would be physics. However -- this is just another way of saying that he'd have no symbols to grasp your behavior and would be forced to create various mental models that he could share with others. Donald Rumsfeld famously talked about knowns and unknowns[1]. But there is another dimension of things we have no symbology to begin discussing. There be dragons. 1. this video
He was ridiculed for talking about "unknown unknowns" because of the ridiculous phrasing. See this video Interestingly, this ridicule became so common that now people know more about known unknowns, and unknown unknows, which is perfectly sound logic, but just weirdly associated with Rumsfeld now.