What is the Acquired Israeli Failure Syndrome, and what is its significance for viral immunity?
Prof. Shlomo Havlin, last year's Israel Prize laureate, is the most cited Israeli scientist in the world, meaning the most viral in the scientific network—a fitting trait for someone whose contribution to network research opened a new global field of study, and who has dealt extensively with the spread of viruses in networks—that is, viral spread. In a normal society, this man would be more well-known than Bibi [Translator's note: Benjamin Netanyahu, often called Bibi] (he is certainly much more important and interesting than him)—but we live in Bibi's society (whose knowledge of exponential growth stopped at the 6th-grade level—with geometric progression). Havlin was the first to provide, in the early 2000s, the mathematical explanation for why it's necessary to vaccinate over 90% of the population to create immunity in a social network from viral spread, not about 60%, as shown by the classic result in this mathematical field (for the information of reader Johnson). In a nutshell, real-world networks are (generally) very small world networks, not just small world networks (known from the claim that there are fewer than 6 degrees of separation between any two people in the network). The gap between this article and Johnson is not 6 clicks of different people, but much less (and it behaves like a double (!) logarithmic ratio, not just logarithmic to the number of people in the network).
All this stems from the existence of hubs, that is, few people who have connections to a very large number of people, much more than the average in the network—those people who, when infected, put thousands of people in quarantine (politicians, for example). These are exactly the same hubs that formed the basis of Google's search algorithm as particularly linked sites, thanks to which the rest of the sites could be ranked, and a quality ranking could be obtained in the network of sites (and no, not by simply counting connections—popularity is not identical to quality!). These are also those few people with countless followers on Facebook, who would allow ranking people on Facebook, and building a quality hierarchy and efficient search in the social network, which would save the current brutalization (if Zuckerberg had been a mathematics doctoral student like Google's founders and not a dropout in the middle of his bachelor's degree...). Network science is an interdisciplinary field par excellence, by its very nature, and its insights cut across almost every aspect of our lives (Havlin has important papers in every scientific field: biology, physics, chemistry, climate, geology, mathematics, neuroscience, economics, computer science, etc.—an almost inconceivable matter in the age of narrow specialization). Networks with hubs (like the Internet network, for example, or the aviation network) are particularly resistant to connectivity disconnection. Therefore, to disconnect such networks and completely prevent spread within them, almost all connections need to be disconnected, over 99% of the connections within them, not (say) just a modest 90%. Total lockdown. Unless the hubs themselves are dealt with (another result of Havlin, whose translation into the real world will certainly not please politicians).
In any case, Havlin's results from the last decade, on networks of networks, are those that explain what is about to befall us following the collapse of the network of social connections. In the real world, we don't live in one network, but in a network of many networks. Unlike the high immunity of a single network, which disintegrates gradually and continuously, in the world of networks of networks, a new phenomenon of fragility appears, and this in a sharp phase transition—the fall of one network brings down many other networks, in a cascade. This phenomenon explains the phenomenon of death itself—in the collapse of body systems (humans are composed of networks of networks, each of which is highly immune in itself, but their combination is fragile). This phenomenon also explains the fragility of the economy—and the existence of the phenomenon of economic crisis.
But has anyone considered consulting Prof. Havlin (as an example), the world's most creative expert in the field, regarding the current network crisis? Even the insight that this is a network crisis doesn't exist in the (networked!) minds of decision-makers. All the more so, they haven't opened the data to a joint effort of hundreds of data researchers, mathematicians, and computer scientists who are experts in understanding networks and living in Israel (which is a world-leading center in the field), many of whom surpass our systemic technocrats in analytical ability and creativity (not to mention the ability to quickly raise applications and tools for computerized problem-solving). The main thing is that Bibi "manages" the crisis—with the conceptual tools of a child, whose smartest thing he could think of is simply to bring down the entire network (a network needs to be treated in a networked way—through decentralized risk management that goes into fine details with much more subtle tools, through comprehensive mapping of connections and immediate responses. Just lowering the switch is a decree that the public cannot withstand, and therefore will not withstand—the virality will not break, only the public will). Public discourse is infantile, of course, just like Bibi—every nation deserves its leaders. Let's see a leader try to explain policy to the public for mathematical reasons or according to insights arising from the data (everyone will claim: I know the "mathematics of life" better than any mathematics professor). Even the steps that were taken show zero understanding of behavioral economics and incentive building—appealing to a person to report on themselves is contrary to human nature. But we have someone who understands human nature very well—and knows that fear conquers reason, because when acting in panic, IQ drops dramatically (and vice versa).
From the moment our lives were irreparably networked, we are exposed to phenomena of network spread (Trump, #MeToo, and fake news also started as such a viral phenomenon), but all our social and perceptual mechanisms belong to a hierarchical world (that's why we're busy with Bibi), that is, to a tree architecture and not a network one. Corona is just a prelude to the meaning of viral spread in a network, and exposes the nakedness and ignorance of the general public and its leaders in basic concepts in the field (a computer virus can also cause unimaginable destruction, and a spreading spiritual virus—and our lives are full of these—has severe cultural implications). Perhaps the most important lesson from the virus is the need to teach graph theory—a historically misleading name for network geometry—as early as elementary school, instead of Euclidean geometry. This is a field that is very simple to understand intuitively, where every child can grasp beautiful proofs, whose insights are much more relevant to their lives than the Pythagorean theorem, and which is an excellent introduction to further studies of modern mathematics and algorithms—and to abstract thinking in general. When virtual space is much more significant to us than the physical one—it's time to replace plane geometry with network geometry. This way, even a leader whose mathematical abilities are at an elementary school level—will be able to get some idea of the challenges he faces, and the elementary public itself will be able to grasp at least its ignorance in the face of network phenomena, and support measures even before it sees the reasons in action (that is—always too late). About intellectuals who don't know mathematics (and therefore invest countless words in trivial insights)—Plato already spoke in his time when he hung a sign at the entrance: Not in our school. No entry to the academy for those who haven't studied graph theory.
Understanding the network and viral phenomenon will be critical to dealing with the problems of the coming century, and to responding to challenges faster than before, and unfortunately—perhaps even faster than Corona. Research shows that there is quite a bit that can be done in the architecture of networks to make them more or less fragile, as needed. But for this, an appropriate and updated conceptual world is needed. The paradigm of the world has changed and flattened—while the state paradigm is stuck in the old, good, and hierarchical past. Jewish Israel in the Bibi era treated the virus according to its usual xenophobic ethos, that is, as a threat coming from outside (without tests within the collective), and was the first nation in the world to isolate anyone who came into contact with the Gentiles, and reassured itself that all cases were infections "from outside" (despite opposite indications). The lack of sophistication of Israeli policy, inversely proportional to panic (and its twin—moral panic), has been its main characteristic for years—and we respect the tradition of Israel. Just like in security, again a comprehensive, sweeping, and inefficient policy was preferred, with severe environmental and collateral damage (and hollow pathos), over a granular, gray, and efficient policy—based on mapping and data (and see, in contrast: South Korea). Why? Because we have a "high value for human life" (for his mind and spirit—a little less). Money also has value, of course, as quickly framed in the discussion as a simplistic (and false) trade-off between "life itself" and a place that's "good to live in". Because only a society that has no class of sages, and that has absolute contempt for experience, expertise, and reputation, can consider getting rid of the elderly in order to "help the economy" (here, Prof. Havlin is quite old already... isn't it a shame about the pension funds?). After all, every child knows how to treat Corona—don't go to school. How lucky we are that a child is really handling the situation.
Continue to Part 2 - The Antivirus: On the Future of the Network