Managing the Complexity of COVID-19

Six months since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, relevant empirically proven information is scares, while general complexity is high — and rising. According to the lauded American sociobiologist and futurist Rebecca D. Costa, these are conditions that may be outpacing our ability to manage them.

Ms. Costa is an Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Technology Award recipient, and author of The Watchman’s Rattle, one of the 2010s most critically acclaimed books. As an expert in “fast adaptation”, she counts luminaries such as Ray Kurzweil as her colleagues in helping humanity make the best use of technology.

Ms. Costa discussed with Resilient Futures the possibility that the pandemic is a triggering event for the “fourth step” in human evolution. This “fourth step” involves training our brains to be better able to manage the complex world we find ourselves in.

“We’re not quite there, but we’re getting close. One of the symptoms of complexity reaching an apex and making the society vulnerable to a triggering event [that unravels societies very quickly] is that there is mass confusion between facts and unproven beliefs. [In this context], leaders begin to forge public policy based on unproven beliefs. And eventually, public policy becomes irrational.”