Truth that is in Uncertainty

Respect and encourage diversity in all things that contribute to diversity.  Be tolerant, except of intolerance.

There are numerous components to our strategy for survival.  But there is one that is pre-eminent, and a central theme of this work. 

The pre-eminent requirement for our indefinite and civilised survival as a species is sustained diversity - diversity in all things.  Diversity not just in the biosphere: in habitat, in food and energy sources, in species, and in the gene pool; but diversity in technology, sources of information, communication networks, and in information storage and retrieval systems.  Diversity also, and less obviously, in the human mindset: in cultures, systems of government, religions, values, attitudes, paths to knowledge, and patterns of human thought and behaviour.  And most obviously, though too obvious for most, diversity in "biospheres" - we must get off the Earth sustainably and as soon as we can.

Diversity is our life insurance policy against the unexpected and potentially harmful, even fatal.  Diversity enhances our adaptability to significant change.  Diversity keeps all our eggs out of one basket. 

Life processes, including untrammelled human social and economic processes, tend to be inimical to diversity; they are homogenising; they drive out diversity, favouring that which is best able to flourish in the environment at any particular moment.  This is as it should be - it is the process of natural selection; of the survival of the fittest. 

However, such life processes presume a stable environment, they presume continuity.  The life best adapted to the present survives best into the future on the assumption that the future will continue in much the same direction as the present.  The longer this presumption holds, the more specialised, less diverse, and more vulnerable to change the life forms in that stable environment become.  Think of the Koala bear; it eats only gum tree leaves of a particular variety. 

The indefinite and civilised survival of the human species requires the strategic management of natural processes by humankind to promote and protect diversity; `strategic' in the widest and most dispassionate sense of the word.  The human capacity to foresee and forestall needs to be continually honed and brought to bear on the Universe to compensate for the reactive, myopic, and homogenising nature of Life, including unguarded human nature. 

The strategic and self-aware management of Life, including the natural inclinations of individuals, economies, and societies, needs to have as its primary objective the nurturing of diversity at all levels and in all things.  Humankind needs to pursue this objective almost to a fault, preserving wherever possible even those things and thoughts which today appear obsolete, useless, or even harmful. 

Diversity as Our critical success factor implies a society that is pluralist, liberal, tolerant, and secular, with a minimum of constraints on individual freedoms.  A society that aims to support as many truths as possible will necessarily be one that promotes diversity in the human mindset.