I'm with you, but......
......I work in the world of Big Business now and I do oversee the analysis of data, trends and other situations. I've worn other hats. I'm in my 50s. I've been at this a long time.
So there's a tension between ethical skepticism and practical reality, at least for me, but I think it is prevalent in most areas of inquiry.
Agreed (but there is always a 'however' :))
Having been the CEO of one of the top strategy firms in the US, I have done a
lot of business strategy. I quit doing that because I am weary of making rich people become brand monopolies and even more rich. But I did that for a long time. There are three species of such 'leaving questions open' analysis.
1. Refinement. 95% of the domain is defined by industry knowledge, and one is simply deciding a minor issue inside the 5% unknown (i.e. pricing strategy, operating strategy)- this relies upon common sense, logic, some basic calculations/models, probability and what will be defensible before the board of directors. Advantage: you appear competent. Disadvantage: These companies eventually die or get consolidated - because they thought they knew the market; but they hit their Peter Principle instead. (pardon the pun of 'hitting their Peter', and masturbation... a joke we carried :D).
2. Discovery. Only 50% of the domain is defined/known (i.e. brand strategy, market entry strategy, product diversification/segmentation, value chain strategy, market segment exploitation, creation of a new market, competitor strategy, exploitation of tariffs and embargo, sourcing strategy, patent layer strategy, loss leader strategy, price to constraints strategy, etc.) - this is where business is actually done. And we do not have enough information in any of these disciplines to tender a TJump-styled answer. Only people who have never done this, think that this is how it works.
The error is embodied in this: Manager's Error.
Manager’s Error – from Nassim Taleb’s tome Fooled by Randomness (2001). The principle of forcing an argument into an artificial binary or bifurcated outcome set, examining only that which is a priori deemed to be the more probable or simple outcome, and not that choice which can serve to produce the largest net effect or ‘payoff’. Only researching the most likely or simple alternative, will only serve to confirm what we already know, and bears a much lower payoff in terms of information which might be garnered through a black swan, less likely or ‘complex’ alternative turning out to bear any form of credence or final veracity.
But ethical skepticism is about understanding this and applying its theory into reality. The world is less defined and less supposed than we may know.
Soft grasses caress bare feet, while supple lips send heroes seaward
Yet still does measure of the world scatter madly at its bound
The formulaic grows insoluble as the question increases in import
The maid quivers most for that man she can have not.
And finally,
3. The Cheat. See
What Corporations Do When Bankrupt of Ideas/Ethics. Artificially lock up legislation, supply chains, media, patent layers, courts, peer review, publication, money supply or information such that you create a defacto monopoly/oligopoly (Walmart, GE, Nike, Google, Facebook, etc.). Cheating is a great substitution for competence.
This latter strategy is the choice of fake scientists, business persons and skeptics. Their analyses ALWAYS turn out to be correct. Amazing. The midmost is really where business is done. I have executed these 'The Cheat' strategies as well and have ethically objected when a large company put all the regional mom and pop's out of business so that their stockholders could extract wealth from that market segment - and put it into recession as a result.
Hence, part of the reason I do not do that any longer... those who 'wear the logo on their polo shirt' and fake competence inside a cheat play ... can kiss my ass.