“Small historical tidbit: Columbus’ voyage was motivated, in part, by his awareness of the Byzantine calendar using the Anno Mundi system that counted the years since the purported creation of the world in 5008 BCE. That made 1492 the year 7000 - a date obviously replete with apocalyptic significance. Meanwhile, in Muscovy, which followed the same calendar and which had recently become free from over two centuries of Mongol rule, the Church gave up on calculating the dates of future Easters (given the end of earthly history), while peasants who were its congregants decided to stop planting crops for the same reason. The result, of course, was a massive famine.
What’s the moral of the story? Seems to me an awful lot of market analysts, ideologues, and, indeed, social scientists are those peasants, reborn…
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