ABSTRACT
This analysis has considerable bearing on decisions regarding technology and the risk management associated with them. Such concepts as flexibility, diversity and resilience have been developed by a research programme contrasting the unfathomable depths of ignorance in all-important decisions with our painfully limited abilities to acquire and analyze information. Decision-makers can never relax in the assurance that they have identified the very best option; any choice may be shown to be mistaken by future events that surprise the decision-makers. However, much research and propaganda on risk assessment and management assumes the very opposite; that some choices can be known to be the best and, therefore, do not require any humility from the decision-makers’ search for resilience as a counter to deep uncertainty. In reality, it is necessary to admit that all that can be hoped for is a more or less efficient trial-and-error learning from experience of technology, and in this context ideas of flexibility and resilience become central to decision-making. Deep ignorance about the consequences of technology means that it is necessary to learn about them by trial and error, meaning high resilience. Two ways towards resilience have been described, notably flexibility and diversity. If flexible technologies surrounded by diversity are chosen, then it should be possible to control and adjust our technologies through whatever shocks and embarrassments the unkind future may have in store.
