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by itsoktocry 791 days ago
So if you don't have "complete" data, you just start winging it? I never understand this argument.

You measure what you can, that moves you forward.

2 comments

No, that's exactly what the McNamara fallacy is about.

"US Air Force Brigadier General Edward Lansdale reportedly told McNamara, who was trying to develop a list of metrics to allow him to scientifically follow the progress of the war, that he was not considering the feelings of the common rural Vietnamese people. McNamara wrote it down on his list in pencil, then erased it and told Lansdale that he could not measure it, so it must not be important."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy

The problem, for the US involvement in Vietnam, was that "body count" was irrelevant. The only metric that mattered was the willingness to fight of communist Vietnam, China, and the USSR. The problem is that "will" is not numerical. It is willingness to fight among the political elite of those countries and they include domestic factors, economic factors, and military factors. If anything, McNamara's fallacy is like comparing the iPhone and Android and saying the only thing that matters is screen size.