When you look at white noise from up close, you see dramatic changes, periods of calm, and what seems like patterns.

Only when you step back, you realise all that drama you read is mostly inconsequential. What will be the impact of Napoleon 1000 years from now? Of Columbus? If instead of Hitler Germany had Rohm? It’s all monkeys and typewriters all the way down. What matters are the structural forces, the natural resources, the geography, and so on. Chances are it’ll be all forgotten in a billion years.

Now, on a more serious note, did anyone else, at some point, started wondering whether the article was really about Wilhelm II?