I’m currently finishing up Battlestar Galactica, and, without spoiling anything, I’ll just say one of the characters said something that got me all riled up for a second:

“The truth is told by whoever’s left standing.”

Basically “History is written by the victors” in a different universe.

This is an issue. People don’t get to decide what the hard truth is. You can have your truth and your perception of things, but the facts of a situation aren’t going to change.

The ‘victor’ of a conflict should not have any weight in determining the truth of the matter. “Winning” a disagreement doesn’t make you right. It doesn’t make your stance the truth.

The truth should be told by whoever’s left standing, but when that’s often someone who decided to attack and rid the field of opposition, then of course we won’t get the truth. We all lose when the brute prevails.

If we stop attacking others so that we are all left standing, then we at least have the diversity of thought in our community going for us.

We have enough people that if we work on problems together, somebody has got to have a new way to look at things. And if we aren’t repressing dissenting opinions all of the time, maybe people would feel safe about bringing forth alternative solutions.

They would have the confidence to do so because we would encourage new ideas (not just new technology).

I don’t understand people who want to be the smartest person in the room all the time. I know that I don’t know things, and I’m okay with that. Nobody can know everything (that’s not why we’re here). That fact alone encourages collaboration and open-mindedness.

Honestly, I thank god that I am not always the smartest person in the room. Can you imagine the stress?