Same thing with COVID-19. Its initial impact was catastrophic, seemingly out of the blue. But we didn’t get hit with a single, one-in-billions risk. What happened—and I can say this only with hindsight—was a bunch of small risks colliding and multiplying at once. A new virus transferred to humans (something that has happened forever), and those humans interacted with other people (of course). It was a mystery for a while (understandable), and then bad news was likely suppressed (bad, but common). Other countries thought it would be contained (standard denial) and didn’t act fast enough
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