Thread by @shadihamid

If you're looking for a podcast, give this a listen 👇🏽

I'm proud of this episode. We didn't prepare. We just tried to work through, as friends who are struggling with this, our conflicting emotions

It was unusually intense, somber, and personal soundcloud.com/the-wisdom-of-…

There are two key questions we try to address:

First, is coronavirus likely to benefit right populism (borders), left populism (healthcare), or technocracy (competence)? Every side thinks that this could be their moment

Second, will the pandemic bring us together of tear us apart? Which “authentic” version of ourselves will it reveal—the selfish or the sacrificing? One argument is that pandemics kill compassion: nytimes.com/2020/03/12/opi…

But Western democracies are quite different than they were during the Spanish flu. We're more democratic, citizens more equal, less siloed, better social safety nets, which means that the individuals depend more on the collective and vice-versa

If death tolls were significantly higher—something akin to an actual apocalypse, I think we'd see a more "every person for themselves" dynamic, but that would require a very high and still unlikely threshold to be crossed

Listen to the whole @WisdomCrowdsPod episode here, recorded in @dmarusic's bunker (with appropriate social distancing measures observed): soundcloud.com/the-wisdom-of-…

The WISDOM OF CROWDS is also available on @Spotify here: open.spotify.com/show/69U2Zw75V…

And on Apple Podcasts here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/epi…