Early Retirement Extreme Forums

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/opin ... -made.html

If you could move to the place on earth where history is most importantly being made right now, where would you go?

My vote: A hundred years from now we'll be talking about the Church lab.
http://arep.med.harvard.edu/

I'm already here. Since I also spend part of my time up in the wealthy conservative suburbs and back in the major liberal university center where I lived/worked most of my adult life, I think I am currently living in a random mixed exposure petri dish that is reflection in miniature of world-wide chaos.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethi ... gan/28948/

Nah. I'm (currently) much more interested in just doing my own thing and trying to enjoy the world.

I'd generally only be interested in that kind of stuff if I was either:
- Trying to profit from it
- Trying to get the change to happen the way I want
- or maaaaaybe just for doing experiments on controlling human behavior (which I've done before on a smaller scale and in a completely insignificant way: I started a stupid/funny tradition that probably 50,000 to 100,000 people have taken part in over the last 10 years)

I don't care enough about any of those to move/go somewhere

Quick response: a daft question. Every living person lives and is part of history in the making.

Quick response: a daft question. Every living person lives and is part of history in the making.

Yes I would if I could capitalize on it. Otherwise I don't see the point. Sounds like some sort of narcissism trying to be part of some grand historical moment.

Eh. History is a summation of a lot of events, most not very pleasant. I don't need to see that up close, nor do I want to be angry about how wrong history is, afterward.

Thanks, but if I need dinner conversation topics that badly, I should try reading a bit more, or have dinner with more interesting people.

I like this question. I prefer to think big, as opposed to small. Small is just not that interesting. I'm not sure there is any one right answer at any given time. Different interests would identify slightly different epicenters at the same time.

It would seem there are four broad areas of significance: social/political, science, economic, and war.

Right now DC and London (Paris could join it shortly) are probably the places for those interested in the political/social part of the Fallows question. Both of those cities will be determining whether we continue down the globalization/global citizen route or go small/protectionist/nationalistic. These choices will also impact what happens with the other major areas, as a country that goes small/protectionist/nationalistic is probably not preparing itself to be a scientific or economic innovator. The flavor of these decisions, especially of the small/protectionist/nationalistic variety, will also impact the possibility of war and whom the war will be between.

Another major area would be science and the specific Fallows areas would probably be AI and/or gene editing/replacement. This is where places like the Church Lab, Silicone Valley, I'm sure some place in China, etc. would pop-up.

Then there are places, such as Singapore, that could tie both of the above major areas (politics and science) together much quicker than other places.

Istanbul is another epicenter of the social/political and war areas, as geographically, socially, politically, etc. it has become very significant as it goes small/protectionist/nationalistic in a geographic region that is already primed to explode.

The hard part is getting more specific like identifying the Church Lab as a place for this to happen.

@Riggerjack
How much angrier could could you be?