War and Peace is considered Tolstoy's master piece and by some the greatest novel of all time. It is truly a master piece. The philosophical point of the book is summed up in the second epilogue... not the first one. In it Tolstoy speaks to man's hubris as generals believe 1/n
They sit astride history moving the fortune of war with their decisions. Tolstoy argued in reality, history was much less predictable with events being decided by thousands of small decisions outside the control of rulers. It is easy to believe in our data driven age this 2/n
Changed despite lacking strong supporting evidence. The US economy largely preforms the same regardless of political party. ACA has not fundamentally changed American health outcomes. We can't explain why observable data like mobility is so tightly correlated but corona 3/n
Rates differ so widely between localities and countries. It's so easy and tempting to believe like the Tolstoyan general that we or our leaders control the destiny of man but we really don't. We are subject to the same randomness and unknown events as our ancestors. 4/n
That scares us as humans but hopefully it relieves us off the burden of having to control our destiny. Bless and protect all leaders and may we treat each other with grace and mercy.
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