#5SmartReads - November 17, 2020

On chess, Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, and global ttrade.

You Still Need To Have The Conversation (Culture Study)

“It’s not that people don’t understand the risk. They just think it’s worth it — and that if they do get sick, it probably won’t be that bad. They look at what happened with the COVID cases from the White House: they all ended up okay. No matter that they had the best care possible, they were fine. Again, it doesn’t matter that we’re still figuring out the long-term health ramifications of even mildly symptomatic COVID cases. Chances, these people argue, are on their side — even if that means, just necessarily, that they won’t be on others.

If this sounds ridiculous to you, you’re not seeing it through the individualist lens. I’m not saying you should adopt this lens or excuse it. But if you want to persuade someone who thinks this way, you have to figure out how to communicate to them in a way that’s not just someone close to them getting seriously sick and/or dying. This may require even more uncomfortable conversations — and I d…