Confused. Could’ve sworn someone named Zeynep gaslit the entire world that airborne viruses can’t damage the immune system and that ‘novelty is severity’.
Will do a longer 🧵sometime, but big societal problems most often arise from what l’ve previously called “narrative vacuums” (NVs).
NVs occur when dominant (sometimes elite) narratives cannot explain—or actively choose to ignore—large problems the ‘hoi polloi’ see quite clearly.
For society to be stable, intellectual elites must generate dominant narratives that *sufficiently cohere with reality as mostly experienced by most people.*
As soon as dominant narratives don't sufficiently cohere, we get NVs, and people seek coherence elsewhere, eg. grifters.
Idiot-grifters + sociopaths (aka “Narrative Demagogues,” below) fill the Narrative Vacuum by peddling false/oversimple narratives with sufficient intuitive explanatory power.
The idiots then gain power over smart elites—who’ve lost currency and control—and society destabilizes.
Under-discussed is the extent to which global economic prosperity in the 20th and early 21st centuries was the direct result of pathogen elimination.
“The impact of vaccination on the health of the world’s peoples is hard to exaggerate. With the exception of safe water, no other modality has had such a major effect on mortality reduction and population growth”