In these days of
passionate negotiations between the NHL and the NHLPA with thousands of experts
who know why this season will be played or cancelled, in these days with
“knowing” about the end of the world by 21 December (Maya-Calendar-prediction),
in these days with millions of economical and other experts (how many of them
did predict the financial crises?) who tell us what will be, it’s about time to
sit back, take a deep breath, stay modest, humble and down to earth and start to
realize that we – human beings – know much less about what’s going on on this
planet than we believe we know. Just very few things are for sure and too many
things we just think they are for sure. Building the bridge to the ongoing
lockout-discussions:
Not even one
person knows for sure how it will end. But still, even if you know that you don’t
know things for sure you have to take decisions in life and you have to judge
things. By judging things we too often make the mistake to judge what happened
in the end, the result. In sport e.g. the winner was right the loser was wrong.
If a sales strategy did lead into better results it was a good strategy and if
not it was a bad strategy. This is easy to understand and most people follow
this “wisdom”. The problem is: It’s just plain wrong. Correct thinking is: You
always should judge a strategy or a prediction not with the outcome but with
the most probable outcome. This is not so easy to understand I do recommend to
read my last sentence once again. Take a breath, relax and read again: You
always should judge a strategy or a prediction not with the outcome but with
the most probable outcome. Of course this is not a pure science and of course
I’m not qualified to dig much deeper into this in certain subjects but I dare to
give you two examples from hockey:
1st
example: If the Toronto Maple Leafs face the Montreal Canadiens in a world of
approx. equal playerquality and the Maple Leafs win the game 5-3 so it’s easy
to judge the Leafs game-strategy as the good one and the Canadiens as the bad
one. If you dig a bit deeper and find out that the Canadiens did lead in the
shot-statistics 39-21 and in the goal-scoring-chances-category 14-6 you have to
admit that the most probable outcome in this game was a Habs and not a Leafs win
but we do all know that in sports we won’t have the logical result in the end all
the time. Sometimes sports-results are not logical and not fair. Sometimes
results in a lot of aspects in life are not logical and not fair. Building the
bridge to the lockout-talks: If you put together all single arguments
indicating that a soon to be deal is on the horizon and then you put all single
arguments indicating that the season is lost you will easily find out that the
mountain of arguments for a “deal” is much bigger than the mountain for “no
deal”. So, it has nothing to do with knowledge or magics or mystic or knowing
more than others, it’s just the logics that tell that the probability for a
soon to be deal is much bigger than the other way round. In addition I dare to
tell that I see in the public statemtens of the NHL and NHLPA a LOT of rhetoric
and PR and if I try to read between the lines I really do find that the two parties
are pretty close to a deal (as per 7 December 2012). All this leads to a – in
my eyes – wise prediction that we will have a deal soon. Coming back to the
introduction. I have to be modest, humble, down to earth and face the truth that we
human beings know much less than we believe we know, I do realize very well
that of course I don’t know for sure when the NHL starts, but believe me: Even the biggest and famous hockey-names don't know this for sure. It's still possible that the end-result of this
negotiating-process will be a “no deal”. If there is “a no deal” in the end, I
still believe that I was "correct" with my prediction… if you know what I mean. Complicated I know, not very easy to understand but still: Please think about twice before you throw these thinkings into the garbage.
Take care, relax,
enjoy Christmas time buy a lot of presents for your kids and look forward to
the soon to be NHL-season!
I tried to reply, but the char limit was too low.. so I had to create my own Blog :P
ReplyDeletehttp://nfmarvis.blogspot.com/2012/12/re-knowledge-shy-try.html
Basically I agree with what you try to explain. If there would be pure logics then a deal would be 100% sure and because there are also strong emotions - as you write - there is still a probability that there won't be a deal, that's why it's "just" probable to reach a deal and not for sure. If you analyze the profiles of Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr you will come to the conclusion that they are very headstrong rational persons - not to tell that they don't have big, soft hearts (persons who know Gary Bettman personally tell that in private he is a very warmhearted person!) - but in business, in the very end, they have logical, rational brains, guided by figures and this will most probably lead to a...... DEAL, yes! I don't agree with your opinion that I did tell things what will make me look a winner in all cases in the end and that I don't dare to take a risk for an opinion ore something like that. I can tell you: With my minority opinion, optimism about a deal is on the horizon I get a lot of shit in twitter, forums and so on and I give again and again a clear opinion that the lockout will end soon. If I will be wrong I will be the scapegoat in a lot of minds. Tell me now your opinion when the lockout will end and then tell me why. This would be just fair enough as a real matchup.
ReplyDelete