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

by Malcolm Gladwell

Someone would have had to stand up back in 2010 and say, Look. We have two versions of a highly addictive drug. The original version is easily abused. The new and improved version is not. But we don’t want the new and improved version. We want people to continue to crush their OxyContin and snort it, the way they have for the last fifteen years. Can you imagine the reaction if health officials had taken this position? “It would be a really wild policy prescription, right?” Powell said. “It’s the craziest idea. But I mean, given what we know now, I think it’s the right one to have made. Yeah. You’d do it in a heartbeat.”