Tag: change

Al Qaeda is to explosions as MTV is to music.

I’m finally getting around to reading The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria. I opened it this morning on the drive to work (Chas drove, not me), and in the first 20 pages, I read something that I wanted to share before I get started with my day.

In the six years since 9/11, Al Qaeda Central — the group led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri — has been unable to launch a major attack anywhere. It was a terrorist organization; it has become a communications compnay, producing the occasional videotape rather than actual terrorism. *

* Even if an attack were to take place tomorrow, the fact that, for six years, Al Qaeda Central has been unable to organize one explosion anywhere is surely worth noting.

Al Qaeda is to explosions as MTV is to music. Or, Al Qaeda : explosions :: MTV : music

Burn.

It’s not the same as it was.

I came across an article on BBC talking about advances in health care in the past 60 years. Honestly, 60 years isn’t that long, considering the changes that have occurred were previously unknown to humanity. So, a lot of assumptions about things have to change. Getting in a car accident; getting shot; damage to organs; lots of things are becoming undoable. This increases risk taking, and as every investor knows, increases rewards.
60 years ago, you didn’t have people jumping the Great Wall of China on a skateboard. It’s not that it wasn’t physically possible. They had the wood and bits of plastic back then. No laws of physics have changed. But 60 years ago, no one was able to get to this level without killing themselves.

Athletes have always pushed their bodies to the edge. But it used to be that if you crossed the line, there was no going back. You don’t really get a second chance if you break your neck. Or, at least, you didn’t. Now we routinely have people rehabilitating after a broken neck. We’ve given athletes the ability to take bigger risks, make bigger mistakes, and come back smarter and stronger.

And all these because some doctors figured out a few neat tricks. It’s amazing to see how growth in one area improves performance in another.

I can’t wait to see what’s next. It never was like this before.