Chillin'Competition

It has been a week already since I decided to self-isolate, in London. The worrying news keep coming, virtually by the minute, on all fronts. Knowing one is safe is barely a relief: it becomes inevitable to think about people suffering and people making sacrifices, to worry about loved ones, about there being no end in sight, about the world that will emerge once we get to leave our homes.

The routine that shaped our lives until a week or two ago feels like the memory of a past life (impressive what a few days of trepidation can do). Little by little, we get used to a new reality (and our mind stops racing or at least does not race so much). However, when we think about the stuff that inspired us and kept us going, we do so from a distance, reminding us we are no longer in the same place.

The advantage of seeing things from a distance is that one gets to see the big picture: the grand themes guiding our work, whether consciously or unconsciously. But the current crisis feels so overwhelming, it raises so many fundamental questions, that no other topic seems important enough at present.

The one issue that particularly resonates these days is the importance of experts and expertise. Irrespective of the context, we all lose when expertise gets instrumentalised to achieve other objectives and/or weaponised to serve special interests. It has been distressing to see, over the past few years, how the cacophony of polarisation makes it often impossible to listen to experts.

There are major challenges ahead (climate change dominating all others), and I can only hope that the ongoing tragedy makes it abundantly clear that not everything is a matter of opinion and that we do not get to choose what is true.

Public policy, always and everywhere, should be informed by facts and expertise, not by the pre-determined outcomes that we happen to favour.

For the time being, we wish all the best to all of you and your loved ones in these difficult times. We will be back very soon.