Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering

by Malcolm Gladwell

Vaccine skepticism is small-area variation.

The canopy high over the forest floor casts a shadow on everything beneath it. The overstory is specific. It is tied to a place. It is powerful. It shapes behavior. And it does not emerge out of nowhere. It happens for a reason.

what you give up in a world of uniformity is resilience.

there is something uniquely toxic about groups with “skewed proportions,” featuring lots of one kind of person and very few of another kind.

By labeling her as exceptional, as some kind of singular genius, her colleagues didn’t have to revisit their ideas about what women—and, in particular, black women—were capable of. They could keep their belief systems intact.

It was the practice of a mild discrimination so that a vicious discrimination might be prevented.”

Scottish writer, Andrew Fletcher,” Gross said. “‘If I can write the songs of a nation, I don’t care who writes their laws.’”7 We need to pay more attention to the songs we’re singing.