Decent discussion about the opportunities presented by a great reset. One clanger is Agar's casual victim-blaming of the children of the Hongerwinter, though. 1/ https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/04/13/1121400/nicholas-agar-op-ed

A groundbreaking longitudinal study showed that the children (and grandchildren) of women who survived the 1944-45 Dutch famine were 2-3 times as likely to develop metabolic disorders, including morbid obesity.

The study is a cornerstone in the field of epigenetic research. 2/

Genetic changes are not a lifestyle choice, but are part of developmental hardwiring. It's massively unfair and patronising (let alone inaccurate) to claim that the health problems experienced by survivors' descendants are somehow their fault. 3/

But this discussion provides an opportunity to dovetail back to the present. Our present society also carries a defect in its political DNA which has given us two entire generations of stunted potential. Not to mention the incalculable costs to our biosphere. 4/

The encoded failing is neoliberalism: Slavish devotion to the supremacy of markets and the devaluing of public institutions in the name of wealth concentration. And now we stare down twin barrels of fast and slow catastrophes, pandemic and climate, that this ideology gave us. 5/

Our conversations about reset carry a risk that the damaged DNA will provoke calls to double down. To build stupid infrastructure that magnifies carbon emissions. To expand austerity because the deficit hawks and market priests demand their tithes. 6/

We must recognise that anyone who now prescribes a dose of business as usual is effectively offering damaged goods. There are credible ways for us to reshape entire economies that don't require us to sacrifice one another on the altar of the "free" market. 7/

Think of it as the ultimate in gene therapy. Rejection of the neoliberal nightmare gives us a chance to secure a safer future for generations yet to come.

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