In economic life and history more generally, just about everything of consequence comes from black swans; ordinary events have paltry effects in the long term.

Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur

It might be useful to be able to predict war. But tension does not necessarily lead to war, but often to peace and to denouement.

An elephant is vastly more efficient, metabolically, than a mouse. It's the same for a megacity as opposed to a village. But an elephant can break a leg very easily, whereas you can toss a mouse out of a window and it'll be fine. Size makes you fragile.

Much of the research into humans' risk-avoidance machinery shows that it is antiquated and unfit for the modern world; it is made to counter repeatable attacks and learn from specifics. If someone narrowly escapes being eaten by a tiger in a certain cave, then he learns to avoid that cave.

The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free

Anything organic requires some dose of variability so it can adapt all the time, and fixing things is not a good idea.