In your book, civilization, you talked about the wests six killer aps. Do we need any new killer aps? Or any of those killer aps tot as important any more or what ar your thoughts on that? I didn't include democracy because i think for the development of the west, the rule of law mattered a lot more. But there can never be a full suite of killer applications as long as the communist party runs china.
Disasters are inherently hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises, and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. In this episode, Michael Shermer speaks with one of the world’s most renowned historians, Niall Ferguson, who explains why our ever more bureaucratic and complex systems are making us worse, not better, at handling disasters.