54S. D. Sarasvathy

more predictable than it may be and goals clearer and more worth achieving when they may not be. Similarly we may also be wrong in seeing the future as less predictable than it actually turns out to be or unnecessarily or frivolously question extant goals. However, note that the errors in both directions involve unpredictability. Thus the question of which error we are willing to live with if we are wrong lurks around the corner of all our decisions. This pervasive, persistent unpredictability looms larger at the state level, where wealth and power can deepen, enlarge, and painfully exacerbate either error. That is why building and shoring up effectual toolboxes and processes in addition to predictive decision-making is important. A new focus on downsides, not as prices to be paid for predicted upsides in the risk-return space, but as skin in the game in attempts to fashion goals worth pursuing even in the face of near-certain failure, has to become a more explicit part of the public discourse.

Without the seemingly solid anchoring of decisions to achieve clearly specified