COVID prevalence in Europe
Left: July to November 2020
Right: July 2021 so far
To all the countries that have eliminated it in Europe: Don't let your guard down. Keep a fence on your borders. Race to vaccinate. Keep improving test-trace-isolate programs. The speed & gravity of the Delta wave will depend on it.
Should everybody learn to speak English? Yes: 1. Network effects of a common language are stronger than ever in History 2. It's the 1st time these are global 3. English is the most spoken / written language & the fastest growing
Only one thing can prevent this
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1k years ago, ppl mostly spoke with those around them. Little need for a lingua franca. In Europe, Latin was enough, learned by the Church and the elites.
After the printing press, suddenly you can learn & communicate w/ ppl far away. Incentive to understand each other ➡️ languages appear around the dialects most published. In Europe you go from a gradient of languages to German, English, French, Spanish...
S curves are everywhere. Learning to identify them is a superpower
They're how epidemics evolve
How memes spread
How investment unfold
How businesses grow
How muscles contract
How technology us adopted
How animation flows
How popcorn explodes
How ice melts
How water evaporates
How countries are formed
How magnets snap
How atoms spin
How transistors change their charge
How ppl get promoted
How they succeed
How they're fired
How they're born
How they die
We don't always recognize them because, depending on where we are on an S curve, it might not look like one.
It might look line a horizontal line
Or a vertical one
Or an oblique one
Or an exponential
Or a noisy surve