in a word, speed...?

and I'm thinking of Glick's book Faster, among other things.

air travel speed vs clipper ship or even diesel ship speed;  internet speed vs air mail speed or even telex, telegraph, fax speed.  fantastically complex embezzlements can now be perpetrated in the blink of an eye, clever Ponzi schemes grow and crash in a day's trading;  whole economies can be crashed in a few days of predatory currency speculation.  things could collapse fast in the old days too, but usually not such large things, or at least that's my impression...

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

Dear asdf, I agree with you that global factors played an important role back in the past( as you have mentioned), but now we live in a time of great technological, economic, and political transformation.
The speed and the global scale of the occuring events are essential. I do not want to engage in predictions, but if there is a major crisis, which will shatter the society, it will probably happen overnight, not in the span of years as it was back in history; and the problem is that we will not be prepared for it.

I'm not ugly,but my beauty is a total creation.Hegel