alt Hacker NewsAs an aside, the mass mockery in response to Rumsfeld's statement always bothered me because it's the single most intelligent statement he ever made about the Iraq war, and if he had started out with that mindset things probably would not have gone nearly as pear-shaped as they did.
This is one of those classic "sounds dumb / doesn't play well on TV but is actually smarter than most of the other people babbling about it" things. Nassim Taleb has written for example about how maddening it is to watch world-class economists who are also just sort of awkward and a little nerdy go on TV and "lose" to blowhards who don't actually know what the hell they're talking about but appear confident and look good on camera. Thankfully in Rumsfeld's case I think as time has gone on it's become a pretty respected statement about risk even if people still occasionally find the phrasing a bit amusing.