Earthquakes and tsunamis often strike without warning, many times in places where they occur only every hundred years or so. These days, there are often warnings. But they seem to be more and more a metaphor for the various “flash” events created by an instantly interconnected world
You can, for example, be sitting quietly on a bench in a deserted park and be suddenly surrounded by a crowd. Maybe just having fun, maybe robbing everyone in sight, maybe engaged in gang warfare. The point is, it’s a lot of people suddenly appearing at a small place without warning. Only their social media knows why .
Similarly, there can be flash shortages of almost any good or service as advice or warnings go viral and everyone grabs as much of whatever as possible, paying much more than usual. Frantic hoarding clearing shelves instantly .
And of course there is the mental flash information known as “memes”. Suddenly everyone “knows” something they never knew before. Maybe true, maybe false, usually irrelevant but when thousands or millions of people are affected, even mental illusions have an impact .
It seems that such social flashes are more and more frequent. Almost like the “good old days” of the unexpected earthquake or tsunami .
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 