«President Clark isn’t the real problem, he’s trivial. One way or another he’ll be gone in a few years, but the telepaths he put in power, the Psi Corps, those will be with us forever. That’s the real danger.»
Edgars in Babylon 5: «The Face of the Enemy»
To understand a situation, it’s important not only to see what isn’t there (which information is missing), but also look for far-reaching long-term changes. It’s a bit like watching a game, noticing only the players, but missing that the whole playing field changes. Suddenly your team faces an uphill battle.
A contemporary example can be seen with Covid.
There have been a few, rather hard to see long-term changes due to Covid and its fallout. One is loyalty tests for medical doctors, making MDs even more likely to go along with Big Pharma. Then there are the political changes — the half-succeeded attempt to override the medical autonomy of the citizens. Power-motivated politicians mandate actions that not even highly-qualified doctors can do against the will of the patient.
And then there’s another one, more financial and much harder to see. Big Pharma got a lot of money from the so-called vaccines. There are news reports that the companies went on an acquisition spree. They used the money to buy expertise and patents. On the one hand a sound investment, especially if the acquired companies deal with any of the likely side- or long-term effects of the so-called vaccines. On the other hand, it means they will have even more power once that medical collectivism goes into the next stage, when «public health» concerns will override individual autonomy.
Not the best outlook.
And that’s an example of looking at far-reaching long-term changes. We might be concerned with the highly salient issues, and miss that the playing field gets more and more against us.