The Fluke: Understanding Life's Contingent Events

Every individual decision can lead to unforeseen ripple effects, reshaping lives and the future, as explained by Brian Klass in "Fluke."

### The Power of Flukes: Understanding the Impact of Contingent Events on Our Lives
* 🦋  A 19-year-old vacation to Kyoto, Japan, and a passing cloud led to the decision **not to bomb Kyoto and Kokura**, altering the course of history.
* 🧠 " We're told to ignore the noise and focus on the signal. it's a huge mistake. The noise is where many of the **most important and consequential events in life** take place.
* 🌍  Contingency and convergence serve as useful concepts for understanding change in our lives, with **flukes being small changes that have a profound impact**.
* ⏳  According to chaos theory, small changes can lead to **significant effects over time**, known as the **butterfly effect**.
* 🪞 " When we think in the present, we never think that way, we never imagine that if we squish a bug or if we talk to someone, we're **reshaping the future**.
* 🎢  Embracing the uncertainty that comes with being a "**cosmic accident**" can lead to finding **joy in the unplanned flukes of life**.
* 📰  Ground News allows users to assess the **informational quality and bias** of news sources, enabling them to understand how different outlets frame stories and discover stories **outside their media bubble**.

Throughout our lives, we are told that we're in
control of our path through life. As long as we sort of make wise decisions, then everything will turn out all right, and when things don't turn out all right, the saying that we always hear is that, Everything
happens for a reason. Now, both of those things are untrue. There's a story of a
seemingly unimportant vacation that a husband and wife took
to Kyoto, Japan in 1926. Mr. and Mrs. H.L. Stimson. They came to Kyoto for about a week, and they fell in love with the city. As they left, they sort
of thought to themselves, 'This is one of the best
cities in the world.' Now, of course, a vacation doesn't
normally change history. But 19 years later, Henry Stimson ended up as America's Secretary of War. He was overseeing the decision of where to drop the
first atomic bomb in 1945.

and the target committee said, Kyoto is the obvious target. Now Stimson gets this memo,
and he springs to action to take Kyoto off the targeting list. Now, the second bomb is supposed to go to a place called Kokura, but when the bombers approach the city, there's briefly clouds
that obscure their view, and they can't guarantee that they're going to hit the target. So instead they go to
the secondary target, which is Nagasaki. 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. When we look back at our lives, when we look back at social change, we think about these big,
obvious pivot points- what you don't think about
are the invisible pivots. We're told to ignore the
noise and focus on the signal.

it's a huge mistake. The noise is where many
of the most important and consequential events
in life take place. My name is Brian Klass. I'm an associate professor
in global politics at University College London, and I'm the author of Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and
Why Everything We Do Matters. One of the most interesting
realms of science is evolutionary biology, and it tells us so much
about why things happen. Now, evolutionary biology
has a major debate within it that I think is really useful
for understanding change in our own worlds, in our own lives, and this is the debate
between what's called 'contingency and convergence.' Convergence is where
there's a set of order because certain things work, and you can sort of have
a little bit of noise, a little bit of fluctuations, but you eventually get to the
same destination in the end. Contingency, or what I call a fluke,

is where a small change
can have a profound impact. A fluke is often seen by people
as a lucky or a chance event that changes the world. I use it in a broader sense for
anything that is contingent. The flukes of life reshape our world, and yet we often write
them out of the models or the imaginations we have when we tell the stories
of why things happen. One of the ways I apply
this to our own lives is with something I've coined called the snooze button effect. It's a Tuesday morning. You wake up, and the snooze button beckons to you, so you decide to slap the snooze button and sleep for five more minutes. Now, you imagine that
the tape of your life rewinds 30 seconds, and you have a slightly
different decision, and you decide not to
hit the snooze button. Now the question is: What
changes about your life? Anything that would
stay the same regardless.

of the snooze button,
that would be convergent, because even though you
have this little change, ultimately, you got to the
same destination in the end. But if your life unfolds in
a profoundly different way, then the snooze button
would be a contingent event, because that little tiny change has diverted the trajectory of your life. So I think that the right
way to think about change in our lives and our societies
is contingent convergence. We're somewhere between order and chaos, where we have these moments
that may seem consequential, may seem completely invisible to us, that do change our path, but then once we're on that path, there are forces of
order that do constrain the way that change unfolds. And I think these ideas of
contingency and convergence allow us to structure our thoughts to understand the different extremes of how our lives can radically change or not change that much with every individual
decision that we make. When you think about why things happen,

physics tells us that
there's an unbroken chain of causes and effects all
the way back to the Big Bang. So there's all these reactions and things that are happening, and they eventually lead to you. Now, imagine your life
as a sort of thread; we're all sort of tied together. Martin Luther King Jr. called
this the garment of destiny. The thread of your life is not individual; it is part of a tapestry. You pull one thread, the whole image of the tapestry changes; it's not like you can just
unravel your little bit, and that's because your thread
is part of everybody else; it's part of everything else; it's part of the way
that we have come to be. Additionally, chaos theory tells us that if any small change happens, that over time it can
lead to very big effects, and this is what we know
as the butterfly effect. The idea that a butterfly
flapping its wings

can create a hurricane many days later. Now, of course, that's also true for us because we are made of physical matter; we're not some magical being that's separate from the rest of nature. We understand this when
we think about the past, but we don't understand this when we think about the present. So when we watch sci-fi
films, for example, that imagine time travel, the warning that is always issued is you shouldn't touch anything because you might
accidentally delete yourself from the future or fundamentally
change your present time. - 'Don't talk to anyone,
don't touch anything, don't do anything, don't
interact with anyone, and try not to look at anything.' - The problem is that when
we think in the present, we never think that way, we never imagine that if we squish a bug or if we talk to someone,
we're reshaping the future. But of course, cause and
effect patterns don't change

whether they're in the
past or the present, they operate the same all the time. And so I think the mentality
we have towards the past is the correct one, that we are constantly
reshaping the future, that what we do is important. It's so overwhelming to
imagine that every single act that we have has unforeseen ripple effects that will change the world
and reshape our futures- but it's also true. One of the things that happened to me while I was researching
this book and writing it was I realized that I don't
think I have a cosmic purpose. I effectively believe
that I'm an accident. This is something that a lot of people have a hard time accepting because the idea that I
don't have a cosmic purpose seems to be jarring and uncomfortable- I actually think there's
significant upside to this. And I think the reason
there's upside to it is because the idea of certainty,
which we seem to crave.

we want to be certain and have control, is actually really awful
if you think about it. If somebody could tell
you when you were born, here's everything that's
about to happen to you, here's the partner you're going to find, here's the way your life's gonna unfold, I think that would be terrible. The sort of serendipity of life is where a lot of the joy comes from. The unplanned flukes are where our lives actually
derive the most meaning. So to me, there's upside to uncertainty, not just in the serendipity of life, but also in the fact that
we're just part of this cosmic accident that is existence, that we don't fully understand. And I think the lesson of that
accident is to enjoy life. If you don't think that
you have a grand purpose- if somebody else would've existed but for a millisecond change- then maybe the best thing
to do is to just try to make

other people's lives a bit better, and to enjoy being on the ride. And I think that's the
way that I have sort of come to think of my own existence as a result of the revelation that I am quite literally a fluke. Hey, Big Thinkers, have
you ever found yourself in this scenario? A news story breaks and you want to stay updated
and understand what happened and why. But every source you can find includes
some level of spin that makes it difficult to assess whether you're reading good
quality information. Wouldn't it be great if you could assess
the informational quality of the news you are reading? And if you could understand the slant
a news organization is prone to taking? If you're like me,
the answer to that question is yes, and you could benefit from learning
about Ground News, the sponsor of today's video. Ground News is a website
and app with access to over 50,000 news sources
across the political spectrum.

It allows you to compare coverage
from different news outlets, and provides a visual breakdown of each news source's political bias,
factualness, and ownership. Vetted by independent news monitoring organizations. Let me show you how it works. One of the things discussed in the video
we just watched is the impact of contingent events, how small changes can divert
the trajectory of your life or history. One potential contingent event
that's recently been in the news is the emergence of H5N2, a new strain of bird flu. Let's click into the story
about the WHO confirming the first death from a bird flu strain
not seen before in humans. We can see the political bias breakdown of the 225 news sources
reporting this event. This particular story has a 25% right
political bias and a 33% left political bias. We can also examine the factuality
of these sources as ranked by Ground News, which is incredibly important when looking
at news related to public health.

69% of sources for this story
have a high factuality rating. We can also see a visual breakdown
for ownership of the different news sources
reporting this event. Here, we see that media conglomerates
own 36% of the sources. 10% are independent news
sources, 21% are individually owned news
sources, and 13% are government-owned. We can also take a look at headlines
side by side to see how news outlets
framed the same story differently. Seeing headlines side by side
allows you to see how different editorial outlets
frame stories, giving you a better sense of whether a particular article
or outlet is prone to sensationalism. In addition to helping you understand the bias and factualness
of a particular story or source, Ground News' Blindspot
feature allows you to see which stories are disproportionately reported by
different sides of the political spectrum. These are stories you could have missed
in your media bubble. I've been using Ground News for years, and
it's a big part of my regular news diet.

It allows me to see a vast swath of news coverage all in one place, enabling me to find sources I usually wouldn't read. I recommend trying it out yourself. If you subscribe through our link ground.news/bigthink, you'll receive 40% off unlimited access to the platform with the vantage plan. Want to dive deeper? Become a Big Think member and join our members-only community, watch videos early, and unlock full interviews.

Everything does NOT happen for a reason | Brian Klaas

Big Think is the leading source of expert-driven, actionable, educational content -- with thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, we help you get smarter, faster. Get actionable lessons from the world’s greatest thinkers & doers. Our experts are either disrupting or leading their respective fields. We aim to help you explore the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century, so you can apply them to the questions and challenges in your own life. Other Frequent contributors include Michio Kaku & Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Head to bigthink.com for a multitude of articles just as informative and satisfying as our videos. New articles posted daily on a range of intellectual topics. ​Join Big Think+ to gain access to an immense library of content. It features insight from many of the most celebrated and intelligent individuals in the world today.

   - Subscribe for daily videos.
   - Business inquiries and fan suggestions welcome.

Big Think

The Impact of Unexpected Events on History

A 19-year-old vacation decision led to the change of the atomic bomb's target in Japan, causing a major historical impact.

The concept of "invisible pivots" and the significance of noise in life events are often overlooked but can have crucial consequences.

The debate between contingency and convergence in evolutionary biology provides insight into understanding change in our lives.

Small changes, or "flukes," can have a profound impact on our lives, reshaping our world in unexpected ways, leading to contingent events.

The "snooze button effect" is used as an example to illustrate how a minor decision can result in a significantly different life trajectory.

Our lives exist in a state of contingent convergence, where individual decisions can lead to radical change or minimal impact.

Chaos theory and the butterfly effect further emphasize how small changes can ultimately lead to significant effects over time.

Our actions, no matter how small, have the power to reshape the future, but we often overlook this in the present.

The idea that we don't have a cosmic purpose can be unsettling, but it also brings a significant upside in embracing the uncertainty of life.

The unplanned events and the lack of total control are what give meaning and joy to our lives, highlighting the upside of uncertainty.

Ground News is a website and app that provides access to over 50,000 news sources, allowing users to compare coverage, and offering a visual breakdown of each source's political bias, factualness, and ownership.

The platform is vetted by independent news monitoring organizations, providing a valuable tool for those seeking high-quality information.

For example, when looking at a news story about the emergence of a new strain of bird flu, users can see the political bias breakdown of the reporting sources and examine the factuality of the information, which is crucial for news related to public health.

The Impact of Ground News on Media Consumption

Ground News provides a visual breakdown of factuality ratings and ownership of news sources.

Comparing headlines side by side helps to understand different editorial framings of the same story.

The Blindspot feature helps users identify bias and disproportionate reporting across the political spectrum, offering a wider range of news coverage.