Once you understand that societies run on status and not information, you also see that most problems are…

Once you understand that societies run on status and not information, you also see that most problems are much smaller than they seem. The worst things in your life are controlled by a *tiny* number of actors. /1 https://t.co/dzeYRMqVXm https://t.co/bAyHQzQYQZ

Similarly as I’ve posted about here a few times, Covid is not everywhere, all the time. It breeds in a relatively tiny number of places, and then spreads. Stopping Covid is a much SMALLER job than we think. Portraying it as impossibly huge was deliberate political strategy. /2

This is the danger of the idea of ‘the people’ running societies, and of these platforms, who pretend to operationalise ‘the people’. Right now for example renewable energy rollouts have stalled, because (it’s claimed) of ‘community opposition’. Bullshit. /3

It’s stalled because again a TINY number of bad faith actors have stirred up shit in communities. Just as they do for every issue. They then claim the community is against things. They did the same thing to shut down public health action against Covid. /4

Humans do not, EVER, act as a group, as ‘the people’. They follow a tiny number of people in status hierarchies. About 5% of any group, of any size. If you see somebody claiming ‘the community’ is thinking or doing something, call BS immediately. /5

And find that 5% driving a particular position, that it then retrospectively attributes to the community. Politicians similarly talk about ‘mandates’ from electorates. The same politicians who then get turfed out 3 years later. /6

Understanding the networked nature of all human life and society is an incredibly powerful and positive thing. It strips away so much of the apocalyptic thinking and feeling. Instead we accuse entire populations of being stupid, when things go wrong. /7

But it’s always a tiny number of actors driving bad things. Who can be identified and neutralised, with precision. That is what bad faith actors do every day, to gain ‘power’. They know this stuff. Good people generally don’t. /8

Good people look on with horror at what seems an apocalyptic disaster incapable of resolution. That’s the con, that the bad faith actors generate. But it can all be turned around, again with surgical precision, with the right understanding. /9

Beginning with abandoning the idea societies are ‘the people’ doing anything. They’re networks of constantly evolving hubs, hubs made up of tiny numbers of actors, driving change. ‘Influencing’ our lives. /10

Remember this? Only a dozen people generating most anti-vaccine hysteria in the community. A sane society would identify these people and shut down their postings. But these platforms won’t allow that. They’re ’the people’ fanatics. https://t.co/zmoKnAvTnG /11

But again, only because the tiny number of people who own them want to be that 5% who determine what the rest of us do. They have no interest at all in ‘the people’. The people is a fiction. /end