Assumptions. They’re everywhere. When I leave my home with my laptop bag, making my way to the station, I am assuming the trains will do their job and that work is waiting for me rather than, say, a steaming pile of burnt office. Still, either of those assumptions could turn out bad, but it’s their probability that makes them work: most of the time, it’ll go over without a hitch, and that’s what makes heading out in the first place worth it.

Call that a cheap shot? I can go big. Science is an assumption. All of science, yeah. It’s an interconnected, giant web of many assumptions, the most important ones thankfully being pretty thought out and tested. Still, there is no true certainty in the end. There’s only high probability, and even that probability we guesstimate is based on other assumptions.

Let’s go into experience. Experience is the assumptions you gather as you age and live. Your experience tells you how safe it is to hit the streets, depending on how often that’s gone well or badly for you, and how much you’ve seen of it going well or badly for those around you. Your experience gives you an idea of how reliable each of your skills is, based on how often they’ve served you well or let you down. Or turned around, and deserted you. (I feel meme-y today, sue me.)

It should be noted, though, that assumptions are also dangerous. For example, when an archetypical USA cop shoots a black guy because he ‘looked suspicious’, and that guy turns out to be innocent. So that experience you build up so diligently through the years can stab you in the back.

This leads me into the next little subject of discrimination. Which, I am sorry to say, oh social justice warriors or whoever else feels #triggered, is again just assumptions. That means discrimination is essential to our survival. Now excuse me as I go find my bomb shelter and disappear until I have been forgotten again.

No, but seriously, here’s a scenario. Let’s assume that in our hypothetical city “Citsy”, 80% of shootings is carried out by African immigrants. (This is all hypothetical, I’m making up random extremes. By the way, did you know that 48% of all statistics is made up?) Meet Bertus, a middle-aged guy that barely got through school well enough to qualify for a badge. Just a cop on the beat. Bertus has lived here for decades, and his experience tells him that most dangerous situations involve people of coloured skin, which fits our statistic. He sees such a person with a bulge in their pocket that could potentially be a gun, who knows. Bertus does the only thing that feels right, and draws his weapon, calling out for the man to stick ‘em up. The man freaks out, reaching for his pocket, and is shot down. Turns out he was just going for his phone because at the time he was just wondering if it might have been stolen in that alley he just went through, or something. Can we blame Bertus? That’s not that easy. The man is not exactly the brightest, but local police regulations say he’s smart enough, and all he has to go by is what a gun-bulge looks like and his experience.

That is not to say it was right, of course, but in such a volatile place as Citsy, Bertus’s reactions have probably saved a few lives or at least prevented some wounds over his years in service. Nothing is certain, all we can do is guess, and we cannot demand absolute certainty when it comes to making important calls. That’s why being leader is so bloody difficult and thankless, you have to make big guesses and deal with the consequences.

So, incidentally, what can we do about things like these? Well, I hope I made it obvious enough. If you want a more rational and reasonable police force, you need higher recruitment standards. That means more highly educated men and women, but those cost more money. We can’t always get our perfect ethics, I’m afraid.

The conclusion throws back to my previous ‘Philosophish’ post, which I will probably end up referring to many times in the future. It’s a matter of balance. A human being needs to assume, because we cannot act without assuming. That’s something we should accept, balance, rather than demanding an extreme amount of ethics or functionality. Either extreme is unreasonable and will result in trouble.

My hope is that in time, the human race will learn this, and understand their leaders better when the next ‘half-assed’ compromise is passed into law. I hope that people will appreciate compromises for their realism and compassion, and refuse the thoughtless, destructive extremes of some other politicians.

We should discriminate/assume, but discriminate/assume with care.