Uncertainty

Overview & Synopsis

Uncertainty is essential for furthering excitement, creativity, and entertainment, but it is mostly something that actors shun. This book analyses ways in which actors try to increase, deal with, but above all reduce, uncertainty. Uncertainty is an issue facing an individual or an organization, and to decrease their uncertainty, ways to gain more certainty are used. Increased certainty is often the result of knowing more, and scientific production has generated a large systematic body of knowledge that can be put to use. Though each individual faces his or her problems, this book focuses on public solutions that reduce uncertainty for many. How can public means of uncertainty reduction be created, and how can they be used? Concrete solutions to the problem of uncertainty involve informal institutions, for example norms, and formal institutions, for example laws, as well as standards. Much of the uncertainty relates to values, and through markets, competitions, valuations, and contests, it is possible to settle these uncertainties so that knowledge can be used by many to facilitate coordination and action. Organizations, individually or with others, can actively change their environment to reduce their uncertainties rather than merely adapting to them. The publicly available knowledge that is produced is central to building a society that allows communication based on shared ideas and understanding, rather than bubbles, echo chambers, or private truths.