Coronavirus, synchronous failure and the global phase-shift

Coronavirus Will Require Us to Completely Reshape the Economy

Florence Hit by the Coronavirus: The Curse of Hyperspecialization

We're not going back to normal: Social distancing is here to stay for much more than a few weeks. It will upend our way of life, in some ways forever (MIT Technology Review)

While each of these essays offers a different perspective, let's focus on the last two: Ugo Bardi's essay on Hyperspecialization and the technological responses described in the MIT Technology Review essay.

As readers of the blog know, I've been differentiating between first-order and second-order effects: First order effects: every action has a consequence. Second order effects: every consequence has its own consequences.

We can think of these as direct (first order) and indirect (second order) effects.