Dwarkesh Patel

Yeah.

Right.

The way I put it to my students is the news comes back.

We've found something across the water to the west.

It might be even as big as the Canary Islands.

Right.

They they found something, but they don't realize they've found something the scale of Europe and Africa.

Actually, it's not as big as Europe and Africa, but they found something humongous.

That's part of it.

Another part of it is no matter how big and important something far away is, it's hard to bring your mind out of the petty squabbles that are happening right around you, especially when they feel like life or death.

So if it's 1492, what is happening?

France is about to invade Italy.

Europe might be embroiled in the largest war it's seen in 50 years.

The papacy has just been taken over by Spain.

Spain is suddenly trying to throw its weight around in Europe in a way that's unprecedented.

The Ottomans have just invaded Italy and Hungary and might be coming again.

Also over there, there's a new thing.

Okay, great.

We'll worry about that when we're not having three wars at the same time.

But guys, we're having three wars at the same time.