Brexit Metaphor No 107.
When faced with a predator, you have to think fast or else you won't survive. Humans have evolved to adopt simplified solutions to urgent problems. However, when faced with a complex but not urgent problem, you should take your time and deliberate, advises Daniel Kahneman, the psychologist and behavioural economist who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2002. Kahneman describes these at two systems of thinking in his 2011 book "Thinking, Fast and Slow":
System 1: fast, instinctive and emotional;
System 2: slower, deliberative and logical.
In war, countries have to think and act fast. But in peacetime slow deliberation is advisable. When one manages an ecosystem (whether biological or socio-economic), one has to grasp and embrace complexity and understand that every action has multiple consequences.
Yet, this is not what happened in the 2016 EU referendum in Britain and in the Brexit process. An oversimplified solution was put to the vote of the British people (In or Out) and they voted Leave with great urgency. The resulting chaos continues to this day.
Einstein said that “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Consultants often use a 2x2 matrix to simplify the world. The EU referendum did not even go to this level of complexity and only offered a one-dimensional vote. Thus when both the problem and the solution go down a mistaken thinking process, the problem is likely to be bogus and the solution is likely to be a chimera.
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| Thinking, Fast and Slow (Source: Wikipedia) |
Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 107 have been posted so far and another 54 Brexit Metaphors will be published every day until the planned Brexit date of March 29, 2019.
2. Disclosure: The author has a master's degree in European Integration. He also thinks he knows a bit about business, economics, entrepreneurship, China, history, geography, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
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