Three Big Things: The Most Important Forces Shaping the World (opens in new tab)

(collaborativefund.com)

32 pointsr0n0j0y3y ago4 comments

4 comments

8jef3y ago

This article is great at putting important factors in relative perspective, with gems like: _There have been about 100 billion humans born during the 200,000 years we’ve existed_

As for most of the article, not one thing in that statement are precisely true, but sufficiently accurate to grasp the idea and make us wonder. Just think about this: nearly 10% of all human being that ever lived since our ancestors started walking on their feet are alive at this very moment.

And it goes on and on.

As for WW2, well, it has been quite important and transformative in itself, much, much more than the actual pandemic will ever be, no matter how freaked out some people actually are.

romesmoke3y ago

Was expecting to see Covid among the Big Things since WWII is deemed the "great-grandfather" of such stuff in our age.

Honest question: am I overestimating the pandemic's impact on the future, and why? Isn't it another tail event, a Black Swan?

pedalpete3y ago

You probably are not overestimating the pandemic's impact, and I think the author is slightly overstating WWII's impact.

I say slightly overstating because you can't stop at WWII, you have to also go back to view what lead to WWII, and why was WWII so impactful. Would it have had the same global impact had Japan not bombed Pearl Harbour?

Could the Cold War have occurred without WWII? If the Cold War didn't materialize, would the US have developed the Apollo missions? Without the need for high quality small transistors for Apollo, would the modern computer age have developed as it has?

The gist of what I'm saying is that I don't believe you can take any of these things in isolation. The Butterfly Effect is real.

Having said all of that. I believe this is an excellent article in viewing the impact of events.

thomassmith653y ago

(2019)

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