Simone Stolzoff

There's this project called the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index that has tracked global uncertainty over time.

Since the study began in the 80s, the five highest measurements of uncertainty have all occurred in the last five years.

You think about things like the COVID pandemic, the

War in Ukraine, Iran, tariff policy.

We live in an incredibly uncertain world.

Now, if you were talking to someone who lived in Florence during the bubonic plague, they might think, okay, maybe it's not that uncertain.

But I think the biggest thing that's changed recently is that our tolerance for uncertainty has declined.

With the rise of the internet and mobile phones, it's done two things.

One is it's created the expectation that answers should be readily available.

Whereas maybe five years ago, I might have been fine not knowing the name of a given actor, now I feel this almost involuntary need to reach for my phone.

The second thing it's done is it's taken all of the world's crises, all of the uncertainty that might exist out there, and flattened it and brought it right to our doorstep.

And so the world is incredibly uncertain.

Our tolerance for uncertainty is in decline.

And that leaves us so much of the anxiety and fear that so many people are feeling today.

At the most basic level, the world is uncertain, especially when you think about anything that happens in the future.

And so if you are intolerant of uncertainty, individuals tend to be less creative, for example, because when they hit a moment of discomfort or ambiguity, they tend to go for the safest option, which isn't always the optimal choice.

Communities tend to be more cohesive and collaborative in the face of

of higher levels of uncertainty tolerance because they're able to collaborate across differences.

Whereas if you're intolerant of uncertainty, you might not want to speak to your neighbor or speak to a stranger or speak to someone who voted for someone differently than you.

And as a society at large, when we're intolerant of uncertainty, we tend to not be very resilient or adaptive.