Cory Doctorow: Politics and sf: People look out for each other during a crisis, despite stories about people going crazy and turning on each other during disaster, or when civilization collapses.

As pulp writers, science fiction writers don’t want to confine themselves to man-against-man or man-against nature, we like the plot-forward twofer, where it’s man-against-nature-against-man, where the tsunami blows your house over and your neighbors come over to eat you. That kind of story of the foundational beastiality of humans does make for great storytelling, but it’s not true. That’s not actually what happens in crises.

In crises, the refrigerator hum of petty grievance stops and leaves behind the silence to make you realize that you have more in common with your neighbors. It’s when people are are their best.