David Frum: Disasters happen, plagues and wars. But this doesn't mean an existential doomsday. He says we have a media eco system designed to exaggerate the scale of doom. More you fixate on these apocalyptic scenarios, i think, is less well equipped for real disasters that come along.
Disasters are inherently hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises, and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. In this episode, Michael Shermer speaks with one of the world’s most renowned historians, Niall Ferguson, who explains why our ever more bureaucratic and complex systems are making us worse, not better, at handling disasters.