February 12, 2012
The Pachinko Effect
History is neither preordained nor a straight line. It is a fiendishly complex game of billiards or perhaps a massive pachinko machine. The cascade effect of screwing with a few variables is inherently unpredictable as the tapestry of history is bound together with a collection of seemingly insignificant threads, the removal or reordering of which will unravel said tapestry in unknown ways.
Pondering such things is often dismissed as silly fantasy or mental masturbation, but our future will soon be history, and it behooves us to remember what a near run thing our existence is. Such reflection might, for instance, have made a great deal of difference in the August of 1914.
Pondering such things is often dismissed as silly fantasy or mental masturbation, but our future will soon be history, and it behooves us to remember what a near run thing our existence is. Such reflection might, for instance, have made a great deal of difference in the August of 1914.
A short, glorious endeavor...sure to be finished by Christmas.
As we look upon the uncharted, unlit highway that is our future, it is, perhaps, wise to reflect upon how
surprising our history was to those that made it. We should take great
care to learn as much as we can from their astonishment, for the road we
travel has as many forks and is at least as precarious as theirs.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
04:24 PM
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