Who and what will rise and fall in status?
A reader asks:
will we see a post from you with predictions of ‘risers & fallers’ in our new coronowartime world?…What are your predictions for (semi-) permanent changes in status of various insititutions & ideologies in the new times?!
Here goes:
Risers
Health care workers — duh, and much deserved.
The internet and the tech community more broadly — Their institutions have performed the best, and even Anand G. has more or less recanted.
Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea
Peter Thiel, who numerous times cautioned us about the fragility of globalization and global supply chains.
State capacity libertarianism
The NBA and Adam Silver — They led the charge to shut things down.
Surveillance — It worked in parts of East Asia, and Europe’s unwillingness to use it will cost many lives.
Telemedicine
Science and scientists
Balaji Srinivasan, who saw it all coming on Twitter.
Individuals who can create structure for themselves — the true winners of lockdown.
The Federal Reserve System and Jay Powell — hail QE Infinity!
Losers
The FDA, CDC, and WHO — ouch.
Social justice warriors — who cares about your microaggression these days?
Rudy Gobert — will never be in the running for “Defensive Player of the Year” ever again. That said, his being Covid-positive led to the closing of the NBA and may have benefited America more than any other NBA player “action” has done, ever. He has since given a good deal of money to charity and ought to go up in status.
Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York.
Bolsonaro, López Obrador, and populism more generally.
Academics in the humanities — have they added much to our understanding of the situation, or to our response?
The media. No matter what you think they might deserve, they just seem to keep on going down in status. Bet on the trend!
Mixed
Various “right wing types,” of varying degrees of fringe, were early on this issue. But I suspect they will rise in status only within their “in groups.” Same with Matt Stoller.
Triage — we had to do it, and we did it unflinchingly. But in the “social record,” will this go down as OK, or as horrifying and “we can’t ever let this happen again”? Or maybe we’ll just forget about it, and pretend those silly philosophers doing trolley problems are wasting our time.
Donald Trump and also China. I’ll delete any comments that discuss these, because as topics they do not encourage subtlety of response. No matter what you may think is a just outcome here, in predictive terms the paths of these reputations are still difficult to call.
I thank C. for some assistance with this post.