In Fire Weather, author John Vaillant describes the “Lucretius Problem,” a phenomenon wherein people can have all the information about what is happening yet fail to understand that it is happening. People tend to perceive reality within the confines of what they have already experienced, and struggle to grasp a worst-case scenario even as it unfolds around them. Vaillant, writing about the Fort McMurray fire in Alberta, Canada in 2016, is talking about the increasing destructive potential of fire due to the climate crisis, the fossil fuel extraction industry, and changes in the materials and methods for building towns and cities. But the concept is equally applicable to the devastation being wrought by the new US political regime.

People tend to perceive reality within the confines of what they have already experienced, and struggle to grasp a worst-case scenario even as it unfolds around them.

  • @Botzo
    9•5 hours ago

    As writer John Ganz points out, “Musk’s total idiocy is structural: it goes back to the very origin of the Greek term idiotes, a person who cannot understand the shared political life of the city. These people cannot understand that their wealth and power are not their sovereign creations but the shared product of the wider state and society that supports and sustains them.”

    On the nose.

    This was a great read. Thanks for sharing.