We control nothing, but we influence everything | Brian Klaas: Full Interview

"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."

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?

------------------------------------- About Brian Klaas: Dr. Brian Klaas is an Associate Professor in Global Politics at University College London, an affiliate researcher at the University of Oxford, and a contributing writer for The Atlantic. He is also the author five books, including Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters (2024) and Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us (2021). Klaas writes the popular The Garden of Forking Paths Substack and created the award-winning Power Corrupts podcast, which has been downloaded roughly three million times. Klaas is an expert on democracy, authoritarianism, American politics, political violence, elections, and the nature of power. Additionally, his research interests include contingency, chaos theory, evolutionary biology, the philosophy of science and social science, and complex systems. In addition to Fluke and Corruptible, Klaas authored three earlier books: The Despot's Apprentice: Donald Trump's Attack on Democracy (Hurst & Co, 2017); The Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding & Abetting the Decline of Democracy, (Oxford University Press, 2016) and How to Rig an Election (Yale University Press, co-authored with Professor Nic Cheeseman; 2018).

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