“When in 1913 people said that there was peace between France and Germany, they meant that ‘there is no war going on at present between France and Germany, but who knows what next year will bring.’ When today we say there is peace between France and Germany, we mean that it is inconceivable under any foreseeable circumstances that war might break out between them.” – Yuval Noah Harari in Homo Deus.
Peace has always been a stable concept in my mental model of the world. It has felt like the default, the obvious, and the norm.
But as little 100 years ago, peace looked very different; it was fragile and temperamental.
It got me pondering: what other concepts feel normal today, but were wildly different as little as 100 years ago?