Venkatesh Rao

We’re now in the bizarre condition of the world’s supposedly most developed nation (still true in a dozen important ways) having failed the hardest at this basic state competence test. And for cultural reasons, not technological.

Cultural as in: broken public+private basic healthcare system, abandonment of the most vulnerable, and a third of the country joining a Trumpist death cult where patriotic courage is defined as giving others disease. Having the best univs and hospitals can’t fight that.

Grim thing is: flu watchers expect ~5 dangerous flu pandemics in the next century. This one’s kinda a bonus. Then there’s antibiotic resistance and stuff. A whole empire of other diseases held at bay at gradually increasing cost.

Need high density for climate change, low density for disease resistance. High globalization for economic growth and standard of living, loa globalization for climate and disease management. Running into some pretty tough trade offs here.

We’ve lost 2-3 macro degrees of systemic freedom in the last 6 years and not gained on other fronts. Depopulation is the natural way the imbalance might correct itself. That means continuing on current course of world being increasingly ungoverned and ungovernable for decades.

After Black Death, ungovernable state and depopulation lasted almost 200y. It is not a given that the world is necessarily governable simply because we prefer it. Governance escape is possible just as immune escape is.

Right now I’d assess Scenario Z at <10%. But last year when this started it wasn’t even in my scenario set. Scenario Z isn’t post-Covid. It’s the scenario where we never actually get to post-Covid. Just declare victory and give up, shrinking governance to a feasible set.

I hope all the people arguing coronaviruses mutate less etc are right. But sadly the risk of Scenario Z is broader — limits of politics and economics in a world that is vastly more high-tech than the minds of its median inhabitants, facing a microbial environment ratchet.