“It’s a true fact, but a bizarre one, that the reason why hundreds of thousands of people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki rather than Kyoto and Kokura, is because of a 19-year-old vacation and a passing cloud.”

Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► / @bigthink
Up next, Why does it feel like the world is falling apart? ► • Why does it feel like the world is falling…

00:00:00 Chance, chaos, and why everything we do matters
00:00:19 Understanding flukes
00:05:06 Contingent convergence
00:05:26 What is a concrete example of a ‘fluke?’
00:08:57 Invisible pivot points of life
00:13:05 Does everything happen for a reason?
00:14:54 The history of ideas
00:19:33 The delusion of individualism
00:23:05 How can science help us understand flukes?
00:27:40 Convergence vs contingency
00:28:48 How do ripple effects define our lives?
00:33:18 The Butterfly Effect
00:38:28 What are the ‘Basins of Attraction?’
00:47:00 How do we define the research model of social change?
01:00:14 What is the upside to uncertainty?
01:10:06 What is your position on free will?
01:17:26 What do we get wrong about ‘The Concept of Genius?’
01:23:59 Why do people believe in conspiracy theories?

Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-inte…

[…]