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Value should mean Money, not Claps
In Europe, together with COVID, there is another endemic condition: everyone is an expert at almost everything.
I still remember the early morning coffees between colleagues, back in the year 2000 in Italy. Then, everyone suddenly turned into an expert of competitive sailing. We all stayed up late, ensconced in our sofas to follow the adventures of Luna Rossa, the Italian yacht runner-up of that year’s America’s Cup. “The skipper should have jibed earlier,” “He should have covered in that windward leg,” “They have an illegal spinnaker pole, that’s why,” “In the left side of the regatta field there is always more wind at that time of the day.” It was all quite fun, innocuous, but ridiculous.
Nowadays, we are all virologists, epidemiologists, or public health strategists. We all know better when hairdresser should resume their activity, the percentage of protection you gain by wearing a mask type instead of the other, or the results of secret trials of hydroxychloroquine. It is less fun, more dangerous, and still ridiculous.
Now, there comes one crucial question, however, that is too important to be left to the overnight experts we have all become: what we can do, as a global community, to make sure we emerge from this crisis in a better, more equal, and just society.