[mistermann]

No, more like once the ideas are learned, they seem to excite the mind once a person is (or perceives to be) in the presence of an example. A loose variation of Baader-Meinhof phenomenon perhaps.

It was not that long ago (a year or so? Just when the trade war rhetoric with China was heating up) when "lolololll, economics is not a zero sum game!!!" seemed to be a satisfactory dismissal of Trump's issues with China's trade practices, both in the media and in forums. Shortly after, when the various media outlets seemed to all have a spontaneous change of heart on the matter and get onto the same page of noticing that there actually is a fair amount of complexity involved in international trade, and since then I've read very little "zero-sum" talk on the matter. Perhaps a media blitz on this issue might help illuminate more of the unseen complexity in this situation, although that scenario seems a bit less likely to me.