Ukraine's survival, Zelensky's triumphant speech - none of this was inevitable. Let's try to imagine what would have happened if the US and Europe had not helped Ukraine, if Russia had occupied the country, if the Ukrainian political class and creative class had been wiped out, if Russian troops were now based along the Polish border. What would the world look like now?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/zelensky-congress-speech-us-ukraine-support/672547/

1/Suppose for a moment Karl Marx had not been born.

It is very likely that the 20th century would not have played out as it did. I don't mean to pick on Marx specifically; but individuals induce ideologies, which induce social ties that produce history.

There is nothing particular about Marx's articulation of his ideas that were inevitable; they reflected his observations in the context of his time.

Suppose instead there had been a Dutch writer named Van Halen who published a theory...

"By banning some of us, Musk is sending a message to everyone else: Comply with the dictator or lose access. Twitter has become a virtual simulation of authoritarian rule."

"But Musk didn’t build Twitter. We, collectively, turned the bird app into a consequential power. If it remains under the control of a man who sees journalists as enemies, we have a moral responsibility to fly the coop."
--@gilduran on getting banned from #twitter.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/elon-musk-twitter-ban-censorship-17680044.php