The Problem

The current state of society is strained. Too much polarisation has lead to the impression that people are no longer interested in constructive consensus but just in being right. Fragmented thought bubbles cannot conceive of the validity of the other sides’ arguments. Zero sum thinking has stopped us from developing better ideas and solutions to our problems.

Humanities biggest challenges are global coordination problems. Global warming, pandemic preparedness, nuclear proliferation, inequality etc. are all solvable with a fraction of the global GDP that is lavishly spent on arms. When societies are no longer able to communicate with shared purpose within, countries will also no longer be able to collaborate effectively.

New technologies, while righting many of civilisation’s wrongs, can now more than ever destroy all of life on this planet. Global consensus needs to be created to develop next generation genomics, AI, weapons, robots, etc in an ethical way. The good news is there are solutions to all these problems, we just need to collaborate to achieve them.

A Solution

Postmodernism and the idea of a post-truth society is problematic. There are facts and those are not subjective. Truth is an ideal that can never be achieved, we only try to approximate it and as such are continuously triangulating. Civilisation was built through dialectic improvement of norms and thought.

Allowing this dialectic, the meeting of a thesis and an antithesis to allow the emergence of a synthesis, has been the process to improve the human condition. We will not always get the synthesis right but as long as we are open and respectful to the process we can improve.

To do this we need to accept that no idea is perfect. More importantly we have to divorce ideas from our identities. Disagreements should not be personal and mutual respect has to be persevered in discourse. When we don’t feel insulted due to disagreement with our ideas, critical conversations can flourish. This will get us closer to truth and a more just society. Good scientists suggest the weaknesses of their models and unemotionally encourage others to disprove their work. We need to adopt more of this attitude in our everyday discourse.

Full Spectrum

Full Spectrum is a collection of projects to shift perspective and approach ideas that span a wide range of thought. The first goal of Full Spectrum is to expose our inherent bias in everything we do and say. Simply understanding that our perceived reality is not what it seems is a good starting point to reduce dogmatic thinking. This is why science will be prominently featured as part of my posts.

The second goal of Full Spectrum is to provide thought-provoking ideas across a variety of domains to stimulate intellectually. Cross-discipline thinking is great to show diverse solutions to a problem and thereby creating more acceptance to alternate approaches. I hope to do this both with posts and conversations with people from a broad set of backgrounds.

The third goal of Full Spectrum is to create a community of like minded individuals to help amplify awareness for the project of improving civility and discourse in our society. As such this community needs to develop a value system and approach collectively that can be adopted by a wide set of people. Starting small to connect authentically over dinners, mutual appreciation of art and nature are part of the initial stage.

I hope that Full Spectrum can expose the relativity of human ideas and opinions. This is mandatory to create more civility in an uncertain world that needs to expediently approximate the best current solutions to our problems from a myriad of options. It feels like a worthwhile goal to create more empathy for the ideas of others to improve the chances of civilisation succeeding. For the sake of the following generations let’s fight the regression in discourse and raise to the full height that is demanded by our dignity and intelligence as human beings.

About Me

I’m Omid. I was born in Iran, grew up in Germany and live in London. My career has been in tech. If you want to find out more about me or get in touch please check out my personal page.