How Plagues Can Shift Power Between the Haves and the Have-Nots
SHOCKS
From the Black Death to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, major outbreaks have changed society’s power dynamics. What those changes will lead to will only be made clear to us in hindsight.
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Singapore, March 1999. I was backpacking in southeast Asia, and my friend and I had just arrived in Singapore from Borneo. While on Borneo, we heard about a disease spreading uncontrollably in the rest of Malaysia, but it wasn’t until we reached Singapore that we realized the severity of the...
