If you are a contrarian who sees yourself as consistently able to identify contrary but true positions, covid19 offers the exciting chance to take contrary positions and then be proven right in just a few months. As opposed to typically taking decades or more to be shown right.

But, what if non-contrarian conformists know that (certain types of) contrarians can often be more right, but conformists see that they tend to win by getting more attention & affirmation in the moment by staying in the Overton window and saying stuff near what most others think at the time?

In that case conformists may usually tolerate & engage contrarians exactly because they know contrarians take so long to be proven right. So if conformists see that now contrarians will be proven right fast, they may see it as in their interest to more strictly shun contrarians.

Consider Europe at WWI start. Many had been anti-war for decades, but that contrarian view was suddenly suppressed much more than usual. Conformists knew that skeptical views of war might be proven right in just a few years. Contrarians lost on average, even though proven right.

Humans may well have a common norm of liberally tolerating contrarians when the stakes are low and it would take decades to be proven right, but shunning and worse to contrarians when stakes are high and events are moving fast.

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