72. Christianity's R0 number and the Roman attempt to flatten the curve
It’s
interesting to draw similes between history events which may, at first sight,
look very different, but may also have extremely informative and curious commonalities.
The coronavirus pandemic has given us some clues as to how important ideas may
be spread in the World, raising hopes that we can, even as individuals,
increase our impact on global problems such as inequality or global warming.
After all, patient 1 managed to start a pandemic. I’ll write about this
separately, but this thought led me to the simile between early Christianity
and coronavirus. As an ideology, early Christianity was thought highly
dangerous by the roman establishment and had an R>1. The Romans tried to
flatten the curve, their version of ‘Stay at home, save the NHS’ was ‘Crucify
Christians, save the status quo’ (methodology was more brutal in those days).
Alas, the attempt to flatten the curve eventually failed, there were several
waves and, when emperor Constantine contracted Christianity, the game was up
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