think in plurals
For individuals
Thinking in plurals makes you a better collaborator because it organizes your thinking in a posture of humility. In terms of collaborating with others and doing things collectively, thinking in plurals means showing up with the knowledge that you've got one idea about how to do something, and that you know, and are excited by, learning about others.
In organizing work, this idea is alive in the notion of "diversity of tactics". There is more than one way to do the thing. In climate work, this may be best understood as making all efforts to engage the governments in doing the right thing about flooding, fires, and heat waves AND making plans to support each other for when that preparation doesn't happen or get funded.
Thinking in plurals makes you an easier person to collaborate with. It's also often referred to as borrowing the improv statement of "yes, and..." - acknowledging the truth or utility of one statement, and building on it with more or different.
There are a lot of reasons to work on thinking in plurals, that there are multiple approaches, tactics, solutions, conditions that are workable - this is knowledge borrowed from biodiversity and knowing the dangers of monocultures. Thinking in plurals about computer use helps build the concept of redundancy into a conversation - it helps expand thinking away from the binary of yes/no and into the more expansive realm of "what are the different ways we can do this, and how do we set things up so two or more can be funded and supported properly?" If redundancy can't be funded or supported properly, you still start a discussion from a more expansive place before you get into discussions of trade-offs. This process helps make for more informed decisions.
When discussions about computer use get pushed into the corner of yes/no, the thinking quickly turns into the arguments for/against. If you can continually practice the work of plurals - how many different ways can we come at this question - you will not only draw out a larger set of options, you'll also be able to begin to sketch out redundancy of many types. Being able to have the system work when the power is out, being able to offer a way to work with a person and a computer, being able to do all of one or the other.
The instinct and norm to think in the singular of the best, the fastest, the most well-known, etc. aligns closely with the trouble of a super narrow set of expertise being valued when talking about computer use. Thinking in plurals, and inviting them into every sentence, every question, every list, helps steer discussions in different and generative directions.