ABSTRACT
This penultimate chapter tries to draw some general conclusions from what preceded. It begins with a “thick description” of a case, in which one human error, one second in duration, changed the course of history-because it led to the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl. This leads us to the phenomenon of forecasting and strategic planning. Many governments and other institutions make long-term commitments to future developments-also in the domains of public opinion and perception. The problem is that these expectations often turn out to be way off the mark, so that emerging threats and opportunities are seriously underestimated. In this context, we need a better understanding of the metaprinciple of all metaprinciples: that of fundamental uncertainty. The frameworks of complexity and chaos theory make clear why so many key processes cannot entirely be measured, predicted, and controlled. This fundamental uncertainty also demands a completely different management approach.
