How we came to misunderstand everything

Things have become very confusing in the modern world. I try here to explain why that happened. The cost of broadcasting messages to a wide audience has dropped to nearly zero, so everyone’s doing it. We are losing our common understanding of the challenges of life and death. Science is losing its centuries-old war with a form of religion: autocrat worship. Various belief systems are invading the policy space.

The attitude of our leaders to the climate, infectious disease control, and an orderly society is cavalier. They assume that the planet’s stabilising feedback loops can handle anything people throw at it, so why not have fun? Most likely, that assumption is wrong. People are comforted by the ingenuity of the human race. Scientists would normally save the day, but nowadays who's listening to them?

Chaos is a determined adversary. We may wish our forebears or those in other countries had made different choices. We may hope for silver bullets or simple fixes that we know deep down won't work. Alternatively, rather than wishing our problems away, perhaps we should come to terms with what has gone wrong with our understanding of the world. Misunderstanding causes dysfunction. We do things that make us worse off, thinking they will help us. It is like trying to drive a car in a fog. When the fog lifts and you can see what you’re facing, you will know what to do.