Randomness and Flukes: Changing the Course of History

2040's Ideas and Innovations Newsletter

Issue 145, February 1, 2024

Hindsight is foresight, yet we may be better equipped to predict the future with the benefit of so much emerging tech. But what AI and ML don’t anticipate is the random moments that change the course of history. What’s frustrating is that you rarely see those moments in real-time. We suggest the reason is that we are looking for the wrong thing, making those random occurrences nearly impossible to recognize.

We were intrigued by a new perspective on randomness and chaos theory by author and associate professor in Global Politics at the London School of Economics, Brian Klass. He has just released a new book, Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters that deconstructs the unintended consequences of events that had significant impacts on society, the economy, and the environment. We are making him the center point of this newsletter.

Literally Speaking

But first, let’s get on the same page with a few definitions and related terms that are bantered ab…