Welcome to this week's episode of my ongoing audio adaptation of America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, which begins with a useful way of looking at the world:
In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld made a much quoted rumination. 'Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me,' the Defense Secretary began, 'because, as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know...'
John Wayne is holed up in an old prospector's shack. He peeks over the sill and drawls: 'It's quiet out there. Too quiet.'
What he means is that he knows the things he doesn't know. He doesn't know the precise location of the bad guys, but he knows they're out there somewhere, inching through the dust, perhaps trying to get to the large cactus from behind which they can get a clean shot at him. Thus he knows what to be on the lookout for: he is living in a world of known unknowns. But suppose, while he was scanning the horizon for a black hat or the glint of a revolver, a passenger jet suddenly ploughed into the shack and vaporised both him and it. That would be one of Rumsfeld's unknown unknowns: something poor John Wayne didn't know he didn't know - until it hit him.
There are fairly obvious known unknowns: We do not know the precise date on which the European Union will ban Elon Musk's X, but we know it's coming. We do not know the full list of the powerful men who share Jeffrey Epstein's enthusiasm for sex with minors, but we know that, under the dirty stinkin' rotten corrupt US justice system, none will go to gaol for it. Etc.
Beyond that, it seems to me we are overdue for an unknown unknown - and in fact, as AI accelerates human enfeeblement in the face of technology, the scale of catastrophe by unknown unknowns will dramatically increase.
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Part Twenty-Three of America Alone simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
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To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and don't forget that special Gift Membership. As soon as you join, you'll get access not only to America Alone but to over six dozen gripping yarns in Tales for Our Time. Please join me next weekend for Part Twenty-Four of America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It.
