Most of the time having a good overview of the situation is a good thing. However, there are a few situations in which being able to see all the problems in the system can actually be detrimental, for the simple reason that it overwhelms a person, leading to a perception that a solution is impossible.
In this sort of a situation, the best thing to do is to focus on fixing the immediate problems. This way you buy yourself time to solve the other problems, while avoiding overwhelm and resultant despair.
As the diablovirus pandemic proceeded, this sort of situation was a serious risk. In many parts of Earth, basic utilities such as electricity, water purification and sewage treatment had broken down altogether — which assumes that the region in question even had those services to begin with. Even basic civil order had broken down in some of the worst-hit regions, with people fighting among themselves on a tribal basis.
For the most part, these were regions where civilization had always been a thin veneer over a tribal culture, often further hampered with traditions of amoral familialism. With little or no general trust, people could not make those random associations that enabled people in general-trust societies to pool resources, both physical and social, to build on what they had managed to preserve.
Even within societies that were generally high-trust, there were often pockets of low-trust communities, where people would just as soon stick a knife in a neighbor’s ribs and take his stuff than work with him to piece together solutions. In the US and Western Europe, many of these problem spots were found in areas of urban blight. The question of whether low-trust communities produced blight or blight produced low-trust communities is one of those chicken-and-egg questions that historians and sociologists will be arguing about for decades to come.
What we do know is this: the level of general trust in a community is the single most useful predictor of how a given area will be able to marshal resources and to address the problems of recovery in a disaster situation. And the diablovirus was no exception. In fact, it can be argued that general trust was even more important, for the simple reason that there was so much that needed to be done. People had to be able to trust that non-relatives could be relied upon to handle various aspects of recovery, rather than using them as a means of enriching oneself.
—- William Robert Hearne, Col., USAF (Ret.) “Reflections on the Problems of Disaster Recovery,” An Oral History of the Diablovirus Pandemic, Kennedy University Tycho Archives.