He says it isn’t just our connectivity that puts us at risk, but also our uniformity, not just biologically as humans but culturally, in our food, ideologies, social media, finances, consumerism, even our antibiotics. If we have the same responses to perturbations everywhere, we risk disaster everywhere if one goes wrong. “Diversity, often a key feature of complexity, can be highly beneficial,” he told me. The problem is not complexity per se—it’s whether it leaves you more, or less, vulnerable.
