Brian Klaas

So all of the time, every single moment of our lives is reshaping our futures. And we intuitively understand this whenever we encounter science fiction that involves time travel. Because if you're going to go back in time, everyone gives you the same warning, right? Don't touch anything. Don't squish a bug a million years ago because you'll delete humans from the future.

Or don't talk to your parents because you'll never get born. So they understand in that logic that every little detail matters. Cause and effect happens the same whether it's in the past, the present, or the future. So if squishing a bug a million years ago can reshape the world, squishing a bug today can reshape the world.

Or don't talk to your parents because you'll never get born. So they understand in that logic that every little detail matters. Cause and effect happens the same whether it's in the past, the present, or the future. So if squishing a bug a million years ago can reshape the world, squishing a bug today can reshape the world.

Or don't talk to your parents because you'll never get born. So they understand in that logic that every little detail matters. Cause and effect happens the same whether it's in the past, the present, or the future. So if squishing a bug a million years ago can reshape the world, squishing a bug today can reshape the world.

If talking to someone 50 years ago can reshape who's born, talking to someone today can reshape who's born in 50 years. And that is a bewildering thought, but in my view, it is scientifically accurate and completely true as well.

If talking to someone 50 years ago can reshape who's born, talking to someone today can reshape who's born in 50 years. And that is a bewildering thought, but in my view, it is scientifically accurate and completely true as well.

If talking to someone 50 years ago can reshape who's born, talking to someone today can reshape who's born in 50 years. And that is a bewildering thought, but in my view, it is scientifically accurate and completely true as well.

So the effects of randomness are produced by interconnectivity and we have created a hyper-connected world. And so one of my favorite examples of this is the thing where many of you will remember a couple of years ago in 2021, this little gust of wind tips this boat sideways in the Suez Canal and it blocks global trade and it caused something like $50 billion of economic damage.

So the effects of randomness are produced by interconnectivity and we have created a hyper-connected world. And so one of my favorite examples of this is the thing where many of you will remember a couple of years ago in 2021, this little gust of wind tips this boat sideways in the Suez Canal and it blocks global trade and it caused something like $50 billion of economic damage.

So the effects of randomness are produced by interconnectivity and we have created a hyper-connected world. And so one of my favorite examples of this is the thing where many of you will remember a couple of years ago in 2021, this little gust of wind tips this boat sideways in the Suez Canal and it blocks global trade and it caused something like $50 billion of economic damage.

from one boat, from one gust of wind, right? And the reason that was possible was because we had optimized all of our systems to the absolute limit such that this tiny little chance event could debilitate global trade.

from one boat, from one gust of wind, right? And the reason that was possible was because we had optimized all of our systems to the absolute limit such that this tiny little chance event could debilitate global trade.

from one boat, from one gust of wind, right? And the reason that was possible was because we had optimized all of our systems to the absolute limit such that this tiny little chance event could debilitate global trade.

And so we see this with the pandemic where a single mutation of a single virus infecting the human in Wuhan shuts down the world almost instantaneously over the span of several weeks because of this hyper-connectivity. So there've been pandemics in the past but they didn't have quite so wide-ranging or quite so rapid of effects.

And so we see this with the pandemic where a single mutation of a single virus infecting the human in Wuhan shuts down the world almost instantaneously over the span of several weeks because of this hyper-connectivity. So there've been pandemics in the past but they didn't have quite so wide-ranging or quite so rapid of effects.

And so we see this with the pandemic where a single mutation of a single virus infecting the human in Wuhan shuts down the world almost instantaneously over the span of several weeks because of this hyper-connectivity. So there've been pandemics in the past but they didn't have quite so wide-ranging or quite so rapid of effects.

So we've engineered this world that is extremely sensitive to chance events, constantly changing in these profound and upsetting ways all of the time, and I think that's partly by design.

So we've engineered this world that is extremely sensitive to chance events, constantly changing in these profound and upsetting ways all of the time, and I think that's partly by design.

So we've engineered this world that is extremely sensitive to chance events, constantly changing in these profound and upsetting ways all of the time, and I think that's partly by design.

there's all sorts of areas in the social world where we are told to squeeze every ounce of inefficiency out of the system. This is true for our lives as well, right? The life hack approach is to always get that little extra 1% of efficiency into your life. And the problem is that that means that there's a cost to it, which is resilience.