Is it, that the amount of information available creates the impression that we should be able to know? Or is the desire for predictability or even certainty?

Being able to confirm one’s beliefs brings the satisfying experience that we know.

It’s one of the reasons we look out for stories confirming us for example in the tweets and quotes celebrities share with us. We make them our heroes and then enjoy that they agree with us.

Since the appearance of astrology and weather forecasts, we’ve taken a long path to expecting forecasts to tell us what our future will look like. Covid could have reminded us that forecasts are still a science in becoming, however, the easier reaction was to assume that it was a lack of available data. And yet people still look out for forecasts to help them deal with the pandemic.

Forecasts have not only become part of our normality, with such presence that forecasts are taken with growing confidence expecting them to predict the future. It doesn’t seem to matter how many failed. Actually, it seems that the existing forecasts motivate people to share their predictions. Eventually leading to confusing opinions with forecasts.

It is seeking evidence.

And an approach that makes curiosity less accessible.

Being curious could lead to finding our beliefs challenged.

Being curious could highlight areas we don’t have a belief about.

Being curious could mean seeing the many things we don’t have evidence about, that is we either don’t know or don’t understand.

Being curious comes with the desire to learn. But the desire to learn alone isn’t enough. It is the choice of how and what to learn that closes or opens the door to curiosity.

Curiosity is the ability to open up to the unknown independently from what it brings.

In a way, curiosity is a description of the person’s risk culture.

The more people rely on their or other people’s forecasts the less curiosity they’ll assume necessary.