We Will Pay for Our Summer Vacations with Winter
Lockdowns
How China Controlled COVID-19
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/17/how-china-controlled-the-coronavirus
A Deadly Coronavirus Was Inevitable. Why Was No One Ready?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-deadly-coronavirus-was-inevitable-why-was-no-one-ready-for-covid-11597325213
Individual Choice Is a Bad Fit for Covid Safety: Consider the externalities: We each choose whether to isolate or wear a mask, but all society bears the costs.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/individual-choice-is-a-bad-fit-for-covid-safety-11597269124
Pathogen prevalence predicts human cross-cultural variability in individualism/collectivism
Abstract
Pathogenic diseases impose selection pressures on the social behaviour of host populations. In humans (Homo sapiens), many psychological phenomena appear to serve an antipathogen defence function. One broad implication is the existence of cross-cultural differences in human cognition and behaviour contingent upon the relative presence of pathogens in the local ecology. We focus specifically on one fundamental cultural variable: differences in individualistic versus collectivist values. We suggest that specific behavioural manifestations of collectivism (e.g. ethnocentrism, conformity) can inhibit the transmission of pathogens; and so we hypothesize that collectivism (compared with individualism) will more often characterize cultures in regions that have historically had higher prevalence of pathogens. Drawing on epidemiological data and the findings of worldwide cross-national surveys of individualism/collectivism, our results support this hypothesis: the regional prevalence of pathogens has a strong positive correlation with cultural indicators of collectivism and a strong negative correlation with individualism. The correlations remain significant even when controlling for potential confounding variables. These results help to explain the origin of a paradigmatic cross-cultural difference, and reveal previously undocumented consequences of pathogenic diseases on the variable nature of human societies.