By Invitation

Building back better with trampolines

The trampoline metaphor provides the best conceptual model for resilience and social cohesion, both crucial for the post-pandemic recovery.

Like social cohesion, the trampoline’s different components all have to work together, or the entire structure fails. PHOTO: BERITA HARIAN
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Before the pandemic ends is when we need to debate how the world should look afterwards. Many "build back better" proposals are in circulation. In studying them, we need to focus on two ideas: first, resilience; second, social cohesion.

As argued in The Resilient Society, a wonderful book launched at this month's Singapore Fintech Festival, resilience is the ability to bounce back. It is a feature of systems that show elasticity.

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