I was surprised by my own reaction when Bill Gates, a familiar face among the world’s unelected elite, appeared on a popular podcast to warn of yet another looming crisis. Anyone who spends time making predictions can get pulled into what tech people call “hyperstition”: the way a forecast can help bring itself about. And when the mood turns apocalyptic, it’s hard not to get swept up in all the talk about what the future might hold.
Still, Americans have lived through one elite-driven emergency after another for decades. Nuclear war. Deadly pandemics. Climate catastrophe. A real-life version of “The Terminator.” The planet’s magnetic poles flipping. There’s always something, and unless you’re panicking, apparently you’re not paying attention.
But what does “crisis” mean, exactly? Often, it means a reason for people with power to use that power over you—and, eventually, over everyone else. Convenient, really.
And if you don’t pay attention, you’re told, you’re helping create the real crisis, the one that somehow sits beneath whatever existential threat is being discussed this week. Try to step away from the apocalypse and you risk being cast as morally at fault. People are suffering. Things will get worse. Who are you to think you’re different? How can you abandon the greater good? And if you don’t vote, display the right signs, or post the right expressions of solidarity, don’t be surprised if the online crowd—or the one outside your door—comes after you.
Because, well, we’ll send them. It’s a crisis, and apparently the only way to make sure it affects everyone is to make everyone believe they’re affected.
I think that idea sat at the heart of the COVID-era insistence that you must “believe the science.” We’re not usually told that belief is required when ordinary life is possible. The demand comes when belief itself is needed to sustain a widespread sense of all-consuming danger.
As Gates made his latest claims, I didn’t find myself getting caught up in them. I’m pretty sure I worked through that reaction five or six years ago.
This time, oddly enough, I laughed. I briefly thought of those “believe the science” signs, then remembered a notice the management of my apartment building once put up in the elevators, shortly before the lockdowns began.
Back then, technology still came wrapped in a rather twee optimism. Start-up founders were playful, logos were cute, and the general attitude seemed to be: what could possibly go wrong? But down on the streets, abandoned scooters and bikes were piling up, the mood was turning, and businesses affected by all that supposedly liberating innovation in tech-friendly cities were starting to push back.
The management of my building—a megacorporation in its own way—posted a flat, corporate memo about short-term rental apps. It explained that, under company policy, the building, like all of the company’s properties, did “not participate in Airbnb.”
I remember thinking I had to give them credit. Plenty of units in that new building were being openly rented out on Airbnb, a setup that seemed to work especially well for many Chinese tenants. No judgment; that stretch of new high-rises had been built with Chinese investment and developers, while locals like me benefited from attractive rental deals and easy access to some of the city’s most sought-after restaurants.
Still, I didn’t especially want a constant parade of strangers living next door. And the management certainly didn’t want tenants taking advantage of move-in deals and then making a profit by subletting their apartments. So the company simply declared that its buildings weren’t part of that world.
Like Steve Jobs, Gates’ old friend and rival, the company seemed to have its own reality-distortion field.
Wow, I thought. I’d like one of those.
Back in 2026, I noticed that Gates seemed to undercut his own warnings on the podcast. He imagined some future Americans saying, “Let’s be like the Amish, and let’s only use AI for certain things.” Later, he talked about what people gain from helping one another and coming up with original ideas. What a thought: families working together and making each other stronger. It sounded like another reality-distortion field.
Only this one wasn’t keeping out the reality of being human. It was helping keep that reality alive.
A little more browsing showed that plenty of people, Amish and otherwise, are already choosing not to take part in crisis culture. Constant predictions of collapse can make us numb, one writer has argued. We tend to overstate the odds of threats that grab our attention. And maybe, as another essay suggested, societal collapse isn’t necessarily inevitable—or even a useful way to think about the future.
For once, it seems the people at the top are noticing that all the crisis talk has helped create a widespread desire to simply opt out.
