Claim Knowing about the past cannot help people to make important decisions today Reason The world today is significantly more complex than it was even in the relatively recent past Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or di

Humans every day are required to make decisions, sometimes in the mundane daily work they do, sometimes about something important in life. The decision-making abilities vary from individual to individual based on complexity and the problem/choice they face/make. There are different factors that drive the decision-making ability some of them are – how calmly does an individual thinks about something, how incisive they are, how their experiences have been in similar previous situations, etc. There is not a strict singular decision-making policy that fits everyone and can be applied universally to all processes.

I do not agree with the claim that previous experiences or knowledge about what happened in the past is inconsequential to make an important decision today. There are multiple reasons for this. One is because the study of history or the past enables us to recognize repetitive problems, if we know that a problem has already occurred at a particular point in time in the past we can trace how it was countered, what decisions were taken, and what was the outcome. It also gives us an idea of the extent of repercussions involved and what are the ramifications.

Apart from just giving us information about what decision was made we can also learn from the failures. If a particular course of action taken in the past did not actually work out it will help us narrow down the variety of choices that we now have since we can already know that some of them won't possibly work out. Humans have been evolved continuously, everything we do today is directly or indirectly influenced by what has happened in the past. For example –
A child preparing for a competitive exam plans that he would spend x hours per day studying. He does not do well in the exam. He tries to take the exam after a couple of years. Let’s assume that the exam has become more complex this time, so obviously, he would not use the same strategy as last time, but he already knows that he had put in x hours per day and it did not work out for him so although he cannot use the same strategy as last time he knows for sure that putting x hours per day would not be enough.

The claim also assumes that today’s world is more complex than it previously was. There is no explanation given as to what factors decide the complexity. It is still valid to say that times have changed and the problems faced nowadays would definitely be a bit different than those previously faced but it does not mean that the complexity has increased. The solutions or strategies that we deploy keep evolving with time but a study of past experiences definitely adds value to our understanding of the process and helps us directly or indirectly to make a decision.