sounds pretty basic to me, though I'm suffering from clarity right now... unknown unknowns are things we aren't looking for because we don't consider them a possiblity, so automatically assume can't happen... things that we just cannot think of even the slightest possibility. I.E. any evidence pointing towards lunatics driving planes into buildings before 2001 was tossed out as inconceivable, because too many people couldn't even imagine it as a possible method of attack. There was no reason to guess it was going to happen, because it wasn't a contingency anyone had thought of.
Not enough people think outside the box when considering all possible scenarios... A common example of something we refuse to know is the threat of some psycho nuking a large city, after all.. the repricussions would be grand so NOBODY would do it, right? But that's a stupid way of thinking as a rat in a corner with nothing to lose who hates the world would easily push the button if it was offered to him. Hell, an angsty 14 year old would as well.
The point is that too many people think they fully understand motives and capabilties of every "bad guy". Known unknowns tend to be facts and figures and probable events... we don't know where Brittney's popularity comes from, we don't know who'll win the world cup, and we don't know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop. Unknown unknowns we can't even begin to speculate on, because once we do, they are no longer unknown unknowns.
Looking back its easy to place blame and tell people that it was clear and plain to see what was going to happen, but before the event horizon it is generally not possible to speculate on a new occurence. That's why microwave companies used to not say "do not dry pets in microwave"... aside from maniac mansion and the hamster, which admitted microwaving the hamster didn't leave a positive outcome, who'd have thunk people would actually attempt to dry off animals in a microwave. We can see the signs now that its happened: A heat source that quickly evaporates (atomically splits) water, the existance of lazy stupid peole, an animal covered in water. clear as day that someone would have enough sense to do it and sue, but it just wasn't thouhgt of before.
Hopefully this clears up what the term is, though I admit I am sad that a room full of journalists, writers and high end politicians couldn't figure that out. Of course, maybe they weren't willing to look outside the box for the meaning. After all, if they did there would be less unknown unknowns.
