You have to look at human social behaviour to understand Covid, climate change and everything else. People…

You have to look at human social behaviour to understand Covid, climate change and everything else. People act socially to defend their social groupings. The science or other facts make no difference. It’s not about Covid. /1 https://t.co/Tm5PlsxUIP

People use masks and Covid only as fuel for the team sports. You could trace many other members of this particular social grouping, and find them aligned on a whole range of topics. But those topics are also just fuel to maintain group unity. /2

Similarly those who oppose this team use masks and Covid to differentiate their team, from this other team. Yes it matters whether we use masks and do other things about Covid. But once the team sports starts, the chances of that happening are near zero. /3

If you oppose what Ben and Nick discuss here by saying they have the facts all wrong, that team likes nothing better. That’s mission accomplished. You’ll notice this team emerges into the public space every time another team has a win. When Covid action seems imminent. /4

But again, ultimately it’s not about Covid. It’s team sports. Just as footballers and their fans don’t actually give any thought to the ball itself. It’s just a means to social ends. It’s how teenagers act in high school, defining and maintaining their social groups. /5

As everybody who follows me would know, that’s no accident. Mass schooling led to a cultural shift where adult life was re-built as a giant high school. Social media dramatically accelerated and strengthened this shift. Listen to Planck, one of the greatest minds of all time: /6

‘A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.’ Bullseye. That basic social fact is now our whole culture. /7

A fascinating study showed this in action, in chemistry as a field. Where the death of a prominent researcher shifted the entire field in new directions. See: https://t.co/q0gbd0RrmZ /8

Science is like everything else, 100% social. Until we start looking at humans as social creatures first, foremost and exclusively, nothing else will make sense. All the political frameworks we use of Left and Right and capitalism and socialism etc. are fictions. /9

They’re names given to teams in this perpetual social team sports mechanism. A very simple mechanism to understand and work with. Instead we become depressed nothing changes because the continuous battle of our team against other teams produces no outcomes. /10

Know who understands this better than anybody? School teachers. It’s their job to short-circuit this mechanism as much as possible, to civilise people to a different way of acting. To teach us to bypass playground groupings, and add knowledge as a guide in our lives. /11

It’s no coincidence that teaching and teachers are one of the lowest status and ignored professional in our societies now. The playground has been victorious over them. /end