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“You're swimming in the ocean and notice something beneath you. Is it a friendly dolphin or a dangerous shark? Do you hold your breath and do a deep dive to figure out which it is? Keep in mind the deeper you go the greater the chance that you'll drown.”

Does it really make a difference what it is? Will you do anything differently?

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Absolutely. So called "friendly" dolphins are often very sexually aggressive. With knowledge of what aquatic beast lurked in the depths below, I could tailor my preparedness to either be on guard against unwelcome mammalian advances, or remain blithely unconcerned over some incurious, nimrod fish.

I ask this question about metrics constantly. "If you had this information a year ago, what decisions would have been different?"

It usually ends in dropping the request for another metric

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