The Diversity Imperative

Diversity is intrinsically, strategically valuable; it is not merely cultural-sensitivity window dressing. It is not simply, perhaps not even primarily, a rearward-looking compensation for marginalization. It is very much about the future. The unknowable future.

Variety of choice and freedom of expression and wild experimentation are not simply things that we should tolerate; they are the strategic imperative for the species. Because we cannot know what challenges the future holds for us, we cannot know what will be most useful in the face of those challenges.

While we hold sacred a small-but-slowly-growing set of immutable facts about how our world works (Maxwell's Equations, mRNA, compound interest, arithmetic, and so on), we must actively pursue, cultivate, and celebrate those who, as Apple once encouraged, "Think Different."

This Diversity Imperative is why democratic capitalism is strategically superior to state socialism: because democracy and capitalism encourage differentiation, sanctify choice, and reject monoculture. And the Diversity Imperative is why liberalism is strategically superior to conservatism: because liberalism cultivates experimentation in a wider variety of skills, experiences, preferences, strengths, and weaknesses, rather than attempting to channel individuals into a narrow range of patterns that worked historically.