Maybe a very prosaic observation, but I've been reflecting on just how much the pandemic changed the world in ways that are completely unrelated to the pandemic itself. I think I've underestimated it 'till now.
In a recent interview, I was struck by the comment that so many of…
— Patrick Collison (@patrickc) October 20, 2025
It seems things got roundly worse everywhere after the pandemic. And no, clownish Covidians, Long Covid is not the cause.
My theory is fairly simple: The world was already in a slow transition period from the Westphalian bargain, Pax Americana and into resurgent authoritarianism. Covid kicked us ahead 15-20 years into that future by being a societal break that force-reset a lot of assumptions and arrangements.
We all got teleported societally to where we should have been in 2040. And like anyone unstuck in time, we’re not dealing with it well at all.
Covid was a time machine.