Oh my goodness, I can't even begin to think about this. I'd classify at least 20 by geographic region and then by politics, science etc. Nice departure from your usual work.
I'm sure some will quibble about a few items, but you've got a mix of political, social, religious, and economic events here, all of which greatly shaped their subsequent century at least.
On the British railroads, there's a very funny BBC radio short called "Only a Matter of Time" that features Alan Plater as a railway engineer sent to the British hinterlands to convince the deplorables to standardize their clocks to London time. It's about how the creation of GMT was tied to the needs of British industrialization, but it's hilarious.
Great set of events to consider. We can certainly debate the merits of your selections vs. others, and/or their order of importance, but the exercise itself is valuable. Plus we then need to define what "pivotal" means to what end? Political, economic, technological, pertinent to your 5 progress criteria, or other, etc.
For me, I would have added the Constitutional Convention of 1787, as the first time a government, or mode of governance, was explicitly designed to incorporate and control the main functions of government, and to explicitly acknowledge that The People were going to be sovereign via the separate ratification process (vs. state legislatures deciding), in providing their consent to such governance. Given all of that, in hind sight we could wish they had also addressed the issues of budget deficit spending as a risk to liberty and leading to an over bearance of a government. Something along the lines of a Balanced Budget amendment or explicit rules for budgeting limitations??? [There is some famous quote about democracies lasting until the people figure out how to vote themselves largess from the public trough.]
On # 8, showing Yelstin et al. in modern western fashion coats and ties (and see similar photos of the Chinese CCP leaders in the same mode), it strikes me this is a subtle message of just how over whelming our Western culture has been across the world. If the Soviet or CCP systems were truly world changing or controlling, would we not be following their heritage mode of dress instead?
On #12: "... the awesome energy density of fossil fuels." Thinking on this, we can consider that nuclear energy density is many fold greater than that. But if our base line was human and animal muscle power, this is certainly true. And to your point, it is a marvel that a single gallon of gasoline can propel a 2000+ pound vehicle at 60 mph for a half hour or more [compared to muscle power].
As an American, it was very hard for me not to include the American Revolution and Constitutional Convention. I left it off because I think that British North America likely would have had a similar impact on world history without those two events. I would argue that these are the driving forces:
On #12, yes, you are correct about the higher energy density of nuclear. The technology has so far had a much smaller impact on humanity than fossil fuels.
The 2020 covid "pandemic" which led to devastating lockdowns and a worldwide "vaccination" drive resulting in 15 million (so far) deaths, with a barely concealed depopulation agenda, should lead the list. Especially since it points toward the goal of a world ruled by a single government. The 15 million figure is from insurance industry data collected by Ed Dowd.
To be quite honest, I did not even consider it. I can see your point. It is not clear, however, what the long-term impact of the pandemic will be. Many events that seem pivotal while you are living in it, do not really have the long-term impact that one might think it should.
If I were to create a list of "pivotal events of the 21st Century," however, it would probably be #1 or #2 (along with the rise of China).
Agreed. But nearly 5 years in, it’s trending toward a landmark cataclysm. Another one: the US overthrowing the Ukrainian government in 2014 and all the subsequent shit storms.
> Agreed. But nearly 5 years in, it’s trending toward a landmark cataclysm.
WTF, are you talking about. It's already largely being forgotten. Frankly all the COVID did was accelerate a bunch of trends, growing distrust of institutions, more things moving online, that were already happening.
I can't unhear RFKJ's speech when he announced his run in Boston (I was there) describing the economic devastation of the lockdowns on the middle class and poor. Maybe you forgot. Many haven't.
A parallel question is just how many of those 15 million deaths were people who "died of Covid" vs. "died with Covid (or the mere suspicion of Covid)". I suspect we will never really know, given how sloppy (or misincentivized) the record keeping was in that regard.
But also some fraction of those Covid deaths were ones that did not die of the flu, or other viral diseases because of this mininformation or alternative mode of death.
Out of a world population of 9 or so billion, that 15 million is very modest, so suspect as being called "pivotal". Plus many other nations did not have the "advantage" of our Warp Speed vaccine development, so had to live with gaining herd immunity as with many past major plagues. Still a lot of questions and issues surfaced by the pandemic, but probably not with long term impact [except for our failures to date to use this experience to better prepare for the next one!]
We’ll see. I assist on a Substack that tracks those who “died suddenly” each week (News From Underground) and it’s not looking good. The 15 million excess deaths is a lowball, and there's so much lying and gaslighting it’s hard not to believe an evil agenda is underway.
While I am not a psychologist, actually it IS "hard to believe an evil agenda is underway". Certainly a single pyschopath, or a group of maybe 5 psychopaths might get together and lauch some evil plan, but it is much more likely to have a lot of indoctrinated idiots and/or some mass pyschosis to explain how so many could be mistaken or deluded or just plain stupid. Same thing seems to apply to the "climate catastrophe" crowd wanting to dismantle the use of fossil fuel [which Michael has shown is a central step/stage to achieving mass progress].
I don't think the global warming hysteria qualifies as one of Magoon's pivotal events/episodes, but now that the idiocy is beginning to abate, folks will look back and wonder just how so many could have adopted or pursued such a feeblely supported "science" project. But the real "crime" is the misplaced emphasis on renewables beyond prototype and pilot explorations/installations, by which time the real cost/benefit tradeoffs should have been discovered and promulgated. We have lost/ wasted a big pot of money, time, and talent better spent moving towards a core nuclear energy based society, perhaps with electric and/or natural gas for some segments of transportation and industrial useages. [See my above comment about a gallon of gas :-) ]
Oh my goodness, I can't even begin to think about this. I'd classify at least 20 by geographic region and then by politics, science etc. Nice departure from your usual work.
Ha. Looks like you have a lot of writing to do!
I'm going to leave it for you. My stack of books is backlogged 5months. If I had a scribe AI - my writing style, grammarly, analytics.
A research JARVIS. :-D
Let's see if and where AI ranks in this list 10 years from now
My guess is that it will take more than 10 years to know its true impact. Even the largest technological innovations take decades to develop.
And I have no idea whether the impact will be positive or negative.
Do you at least think the computer revolution and rise of the Internet should have been included?
If the list were a little longer, yes.
Too soon to sell. Machine learning might...
...usher in utopia (might Keynes 15 hour work week really happen?)
...kill us all (via Terminator or I-Robot)
...simply enable us to be our sinful, selfish, lustful, human selves more efficiently.
I suspect the last is most likely, which means it won't actually be that important in 100 years.
LOL
You sound like a "Techno-Realist!" (as am I).
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-i-am-a-techno-realist
I'm sure some will quibble about a few items, but you've got a mix of political, social, religious, and economic events here, all of which greatly shaped their subsequent century at least.
On the British railroads, there's a very funny BBC radio short called "Only a Matter of Time" that features Alan Plater as a railway engineer sent to the British hinterlands to convince the deplorables to standardize their clocks to London time. It's about how the creation of GMT was tied to the needs of British industrialization, but it's hilarious.
https://www.mixcloud.com/Folk/drama-only-a-matter-of-time-by-alan-plater/
Out of touch elites aren't a new thing.
Thanks. I will check it out.
There is also a really good BBC series about the non-obvious impact of railroads to 19th Century Britain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD8vibuQYSs
Great set of events to consider. We can certainly debate the merits of your selections vs. others, and/or their order of importance, but the exercise itself is valuable. Plus we then need to define what "pivotal" means to what end? Political, economic, technological, pertinent to your 5 progress criteria, or other, etc.
For me, I would have added the Constitutional Convention of 1787, as the first time a government, or mode of governance, was explicitly designed to incorporate and control the main functions of government, and to explicitly acknowledge that The People were going to be sovereign via the separate ratification process (vs. state legislatures deciding), in providing their consent to such governance. Given all of that, in hind sight we could wish they had also addressed the issues of budget deficit spending as a risk to liberty and leading to an over bearance of a government. Something along the lines of a Balanced Budget amendment or explicit rules for budgeting limitations??? [There is some famous quote about democracies lasting until the people figure out how to vote themselves largess from the public trough.]
On # 8, showing Yelstin et al. in modern western fashion coats and ties (and see similar photos of the Chinese CCP leaders in the same mode), it strikes me this is a subtle message of just how over whelming our Western culture has been across the world. If the Soviet or CCP systems were truly world changing or controlling, would we not be following their heritage mode of dress instead?
On #12: "... the awesome energy density of fossil fuels." Thinking on this, we can consider that nuclear energy density is many fold greater than that. But if our base line was human and animal muscle power, this is certainly true. And to your point, it is a marvel that a single gallon of gasoline can propel a 2000+ pound vehicle at 60 mph for a half hour or more [compared to muscle power].
Thanks for the comment.
As an American, it was very hard for me not to include the American Revolution and Constitutional Convention. I left it off because I think that British North America likely would have had a similar impact on world history without those two events. I would argue that these are the driving forces:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-geography-of-american-progress
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/how-european-settlers-spread-progress
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-european-settlers-in-north-america
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/how-the-usa-copied-the-five-keys)n On #8, the impact of the Soviet Union went far beyond dress.
On #12, yes, you are correct about the higher energy density of nuclear. The technology has so far had a much smaller impact on humanity than fossil fuels.
The 2020 covid "pandemic" which led to devastating lockdowns and a worldwide "vaccination" drive resulting in 15 million (so far) deaths, with a barely concealed depopulation agenda, should lead the list. Especially since it points toward the goal of a world ruled by a single government. The 15 million figure is from insurance industry data collected by Ed Dowd.
Thanks for the comment.
To be quite honest, I did not even consider it. I can see your point. It is not clear, however, what the long-term impact of the pandemic will be. Many events that seem pivotal while you are living in it, do not really have the long-term impact that one might think it should.
If I were to create a list of "pivotal events of the 21st Century," however, it would probably be #1 or #2 (along with the rise of China).
Agreed. But nearly 5 years in, it’s trending toward a landmark cataclysm. Another one: the US overthrowing the Ukrainian government in 2014 and all the subsequent shit storms.
We'll see, but I think both events will be seen as just passing events in comparison to the pivotal events on my list.
And remember this is not a list of "events that caused the most deaths." If so, it would be very different.
> Agreed. But nearly 5 years in, it’s trending toward a landmark cataclysm.
WTF, are you talking about. It's already largely being forgotten. Frankly all the COVID did was accelerate a bunch of trends, growing distrust of institutions, more things moving online, that were already happening.
It is a commenting rule in this column that you must stay on the topic of the post.
I can't unhear RFKJ's speech when he announced his run in Boston (I was there) describing the economic devastation of the lockdowns on the middle class and poor. Maybe you forgot. Many haven't.
It is a commenting rule in this column that you must stay on the topic of the post.
A parallel question is just how many of those 15 million deaths were people who "died of Covid" vs. "died with Covid (or the mere suspicion of Covid)". I suspect we will never really know, given how sloppy (or misincentivized) the record keeping was in that regard.
But also some fraction of those Covid deaths were ones that did not die of the flu, or other viral diseases because of this mininformation or alternative mode of death.
Out of a world population of 9 or so billion, that 15 million is very modest, so suspect as being called "pivotal". Plus many other nations did not have the "advantage" of our Warp Speed vaccine development, so had to live with gaining herd immunity as with many past major plagues. Still a lot of questions and issues surfaced by the pandemic, but probably not with long term impact [except for our failures to date to use this experience to better prepare for the next one!]
We’ll see. I assist on a Substack that tracks those who “died suddenly” each week (News From Underground) and it’s not looking good. The 15 million excess deaths is a lowball, and there's so much lying and gaslighting it’s hard not to believe an evil agenda is underway.
While I am not a psychologist, actually it IS "hard to believe an evil agenda is underway". Certainly a single pyschopath, or a group of maybe 5 psychopaths might get together and lauch some evil plan, but it is much more likely to have a lot of indoctrinated idiots and/or some mass pyschosis to explain how so many could be mistaken or deluded or just plain stupid. Same thing seems to apply to the "climate catastrophe" crowd wanting to dismantle the use of fossil fuel [which Michael has shown is a central step/stage to achieving mass progress].
I don't think the global warming hysteria qualifies as one of Magoon's pivotal events/episodes, but now that the idiocy is beginning to abate, folks will look back and wonder just how so many could have adopted or pursued such a feeblely supported "science" project. But the real "crime" is the misplaced emphasis on renewables beyond prototype and pilot explorations/installations, by which time the real cost/benefit tradeoffs should have been discovered and promulgated. We have lost/ wasted a big pot of money, time, and talent better spent moving towards a core nuclear energy based society, perhaps with electric and/or natural gas for some segments of transportation and industrial useages. [See my above comment about a gallon of gas :-) ]
OK, let's try to keep the commenting to the topic of the post.