I often talk about the status quo as the controlling force behind every society. It’s very easy to take all…

I often talk about the status quo as the controlling force behind every society. It’s very easy to take all the baddies from existing narratives and just make them the status quo. Like it’s a group of people doing the bad things. It’s not that simple. /1 https://t.co/bWPx666swN

The status quo is the sum total of what is customary. Habitual. It’s why it’s impossible to really shift, without massive disruption. The majority of people do not like massive disruption to their customary lives. /2

This was the reason it was easy to weaponise anti-lockdown narratives. Lockdowns disrupted customary lives. The opponents of needed change will be all of us. Our lives are structured by the status quo, in every detail. /3

Even where we would like major change, we’re very often unprepared to completely upend our customary lives to bring it about. This is why status is an impossible nut to crack. It’s not just about taking preening status whores down a perch. /4

Status is the glue that holds *everything* together. Changing status uproots everybody’s customary lives. Why we can’t gradually defeat climate change, for example. /5

It requires revolutionary change to how we live. Not just planning and KPIs. Many of us would need to surrender hard-won status in our lives. The status quo will never do that. History shows it only shifts that much with catastrophic challenge. /6

And it won’t be just baddies preventing the change. It will be the massive inertial resistance of all of our customary lives. Just one more reason popularity-based governance is worse than useless. The change needed will never be popular. /end