It might seem the MNM hypothesis doesn’t fit terribly well with people voluntarily choosing to go to that rally in Oklahoma (or, to take an example from the other aisle, the uncritical support certain other outdoor gatherings received from many people who ought to know better), but I actually did say something at the end of my post that seems to explain both:
On the other hand, the MNM effect requires leaders and individuals to have access to information about the state of the world right now (i.e. how dangerous are things at the moment). Even in countries with reasonably free flow of information this is not a given. If you accept Eliezer Yudkowksy’s thesis that clickbait has impaired our ability to understand a persistent, objective external world then you might be more pessimistic about the MNM effect going forward. Perhaps for this reason, we should expect countries with higher social trust, and therefore more ability for individuals to agree on a consensus reality and understand the level of danger posed, to perform better. Japan and the countries in Northern Europe like Denmark and Sweden come to mind, and all of them have performed better than the mitigation measures employed by their governments would suggest.
It might seem the MNM hypothesis doesn’t fit terribly well with people voluntarily choosing to go to that rally in Oklahoma (or, to take an example from the other aisle, the uncritical support certain other outdoor gatherings received from many people who ought to know better), but I actually did say something at the end of my post that seems to explain both: