Sorry, Bill Gates. We’re sitting out this apocalypse.

I was a little shocked by my own reaction to hearing Bill Gates, the famous face of the unelected world elite, push yet another omnicrisis on a prominent podcast. Especially for someone in the informal guild of prognosticators, the temptation is always strong to get caught up in what techies call “hyperstition” — and the rest of us call self-fulfilling prophecies. The urge to get swept up in the current wave of “futurist” forecasting can become almost irresistible when the tenor of the times tilts toward the apocalyptic.

But as most Americans know, we have been living under a state of elite-induced crisis for decades on end. Nuclear annihilation. Deadly pandemics. Ruinous climate change. The plot of “The Terminator” come to life. A catastrophic flip of