If you were in ancient Rome watching for signs of the empire’s big fall, you wouldn’t look at the headlines. Instead, you’d have to look closely for small signs, faint signals. Big things start small.
That’s roughly what Eric Schnurer argues in “Why Local Innovation Is the Answer,” which is his reaction to a James Fallows article on Rome and the Dark Ages.
Starting with grains of sand
Small things, writes Schnurer, often have “large-scale effects but play out on the level of individual grains of sand.” Those “grains of sand” work in ways unknown or disbelieved by those who believe in “major change and progress coming in large-scale, centralized, and particularly federal efforts.… Read the rest ““Local” is a nonphysical network”