The world as we would like it to be, not how it really is

From The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver. Page 20.

I am convinced, however, that the best way to view the financial crisis is as a failure of judgment - a catastrophic failure of prediction. The predictive failures were widespread, occurring at virtually every stage during, before, and after the crisis and involving everyone from the mortgage brokers to the White House.

The most calamitous failures of prediction usually have a lot in common. We focus on those signals that tell a story about the world as we would like it to be, not how it really is. We ignore the risks that are hardest to measure, even when they pose the greatest threats to our well-being. We make approximations and assumptions about the world that are much cruder than we realize. We abhor uncertainty, even when it is an irreducible part of the problem we are trying to solve.