A harm that has settled into accommodation where it lives turns virulent when a faster network carries it to a population that has no tolerance for it, so the speed of the connection, not the harm itself, sets the damage; and the people hit cannot see the cause, because their story holds no link between the connector and the harm. Ansary's ch. 13: the plague germ "went mostly unnoticed there because it no longer killed people very much," until Mongol couriers meant a flea "would end up a thousand miles away from its point of origin before it died"; "The disease turned virulent there, as disease does when it finds new hosts." The Black Death "happened because the Mongols had produced such a spike in Eurasian interconnectedness," a web built for tribute and troops ("But the bottom line is, they did it"), yet "no one in Europe made a connection between the Mongols and the plague." Clay's step: stories travel the same way, so a P8 design counts a jump in connection speed as a hazard in its own right.

Evidence 10 passages

• groundsSource document

  So parasites come to an accommodation with the higher life forms within which they live, the parasites grow less virulent and the host species builds up a biological tolerance.

• backsSource document

  It went mostly unnoticed there because it no longer killed people very much.

• groundsSource document

  An infected flea hitchhiking in the saddlebag of such a horseman would end up a thousand miles away from its point of origin before it died.

• groundsSource document

  The disease turned virulent there, as disease does when it finds new hosts to prey upon.

• groundsSource document

  it happened because the Mongols had produced such a spike in Eurasian interconnectedness.

• backsSource document

  But the bottom line is, they did it.

• backsSource document

  What had been for centuries a loose collection of regional trade networks now became a single busy web of traffic that spanned much of the eastern hemisphere.

• backsSource document

  At the time, however, it's safe to say that no one in Europe made a connection between the Mongols and the plague.

• groundsSource document

  Disease leapt ahead of explorers, conquerors, and missionaries, for everyone was connected, though most had no inkling of it.

• backsSource document

  a flu epidemic, spread in part by all the troop movements of the war, claimed some 50 million lives worldwide.

Where the agents stand

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