I was talking with my mother a few days ago about some issues. I need to decide which of several courses of action I should take. I don’t have time, money, or energy for all of them, but one, a business venture, is pretty risky. Not only is it risky, I’m not entirely sure I want it to succeed. It’s high risk, high uncertainty, questionable reward, and the opportunity cost would be extreme. My mother’s pretty good at asking basic questions: how much would it cost, how much time would it take, can you do both, does it have to be done anyway, etc.
After the concrete details were hashed out and the known and unknown unknowns at least noted, I said something to the effect of, “I really wish I knew how this will turn out before I start. Anyone ever said that before?”
Without missing a beat, she says, “No. No one has ever wondered that.”
Sarcasm aside, there’s no answer. We obviously weren’t going to figure out the ‘right’ path, because it’s unknowable in before-time and horse-kick-to-the-face obvious in after-time.
In actually unrelated news, my favorite form of speculative fiction is historic tectonic plate geography.