Word: across
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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That it took hundreds of thousands of years to get from hand ax to ax with handle suggests that as of 50,000 B.C., during the Middle Paleolithic, the social brain was not humming very vibrantly. There were only 2 million or 3 million "neurons"--a.k.a., people--scattered across the whole planet, and lacking fiber optics or even postal service, they weren't exactly in constant contact...
...idea sparked another. But, as we've seen, chains of inspiration had been vital to the whole history of technical advance, even the glacial process by which the stone flake inspired the inventor of the stone knife. What was new was how fast the chains were being forged, even across great distances...
...nearly a half-century after Teilhard's death, we have cause to be less sanguine about this noosphere business. Viewing the noosphere up close and personal--from the inside--we can see that its potential for good and evil is about equal. The Internet can unite people across distance, but it is indifferent to whether they are chess players, crusading environmentalists or neo-Nazis...
...Bayeux Tapestry, the astonishing embroidered storyboard of the Battle of Hastings, one can see Edward the Confessor of England dying in January 1066 and Harold Godwinson, an earl, enthroned. A woolen comet (Halley's) streams across a linen sky, auguring bad luck. William, who believed the English crown had been promised him, lost no time. Five hundred vessels eventually ferried 7,000 men and their 2,000 mounts. Contrary winds delayed the force on the French side of the English Channel for 15 days--just long enough for Norway to launch its own 300-ship attack on the north...
That encounter took place near Hattin, within sight of the Golan Heights. Saladin had assembled a pan-Islamic force of 12,000 cavalry near Lake Tiberias. The Christians were lured on a long July march across Galilee's parched Plain of Lubiya. Saladin had the right bait--he had besieged the lakeside town in which a knight's wife was staying--and the Crusader force, frying in heavy armor and unable to fight its way to the water, was overwhelmed by the Muslims. When the Christian knights retreated to the coastal fortress of Tyre, Saladin turned his army inland. Jerusalem...