Historical accidents play a surprisingly large role in shaping outcomes.Small, seemingly random events can trigger massive path-dependent consequences: Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s driver taking a wrong turn → World War I; a butterfly’s wing in chaos theory terms; penicillin’s accidental discovery by Fleming; Cortés exploiting Aztec smallpox epidemic; or how a single intercepted telegram (Zimmermann) pulled the U.S. into WWI.Counterfactual history shows many pivotal moments were razor-thin: if just one or two decisions or chance events had gone differently, entire centuries could have unfolded otherwise (no Mongol conquest? no Ming retreat from ocean? no Hitler surviving 1930s assassination attempts?).While structural forces (geography, economy, technology, culture) set the stage, contingency often decides which of several plausible futures actually occurs.In short: structure loads the dice, but accident throws them.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingency_(philosophy)
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Leaders and publics with distorted or limited mental maps of geography often make flawed strategic choices—overestimating distances, misjudging terrain advantages, or misunderstanding spatial relationships between nations. Classic examples include Hitler's miscalculation of Soviet depth, the U.S. Vietnam strategy shaped by the "domino theory" spatial metaphor, and many modern border disputes fueled by differing geographical narratives.Better geographical awareness generally leads to more realistic risk assessment and diplomatic outcomes.https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt1w0db9v https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09668136.2018.1503893 https://www.brookings.edu/articles/geography-and-strategy/
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No, humanities do not need to be strictly "results-oriented." Their core value lies in process-oriented cultivation: fostering critical thinking, empathy, moral reflection, and understanding of human experience, rather than measurable economic outputs. Imposing neoliberal metrics risks devaluing their intrinsic role in nurturing well-rounded individuals and societies. While some practical outcomes emerge (e.g., transferable skills like communication), forcing outcome-based frameworks diminishes their essence as exploratory and transformative disciplines.https://insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/why-we-need-humanities-today%E2%80%99s-career-focused-world https://www.forbes.com/sites/marvinkrislov/2023/11/10/why-the-humanities-matter-more-than-ever-even-when-you-keep-hearing-otherwise/ https://cssn.cn/jyx/jyxyl/202405/t20240514_5750961.shtml https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/info/1662/111510.htm
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