It's my opinion that his old age, combined with the fact that he was always surrounded by optimistic young people, activists, and extremely wealthy people who r

It's my opinion that his old age, combined with the fact that he was always surrounded by optimistic young people, activists, and extremely wealthy people who respected his critiques of power, started distorting his views on contemporary issues. I don't think that it reflects badly on him, being out of touch is a proof of his extreme success; it's inevitable that your success forms its own bubble. Specifically, I don't think he considered the degree to which people in power would lie about what they knew about the actual characteristics of the disease to such an extent, which means that he had fallen out of touch with his own work. edit: Covid being as weak as it was was just luck. The next disease could be almost the same, let's say like MERS with a possible 35% fatality rate, but with a long asymptomatic incubation time during which people are at their most infectious. If that happens, we'll still have to grapple with the questions that Chomsky dared to give answers to.