Not very long ago, it used to be inconceivable in America that blacks and whites would one day sit together at the same restaurant, drink from the same water fo

Not very long ago, it used to be inconceivable in America that blacks and whites would one day sit together at the same restaurant, drink from the same water fountain, use the same bathrooms, compete for the same jobs, go to the same schools, and even intermarry. Segragation was just a reality and anyone who suggested that there could be a better way was "living in a fantasy world." Much the same was said about those who advocated for the downfall of Apartheid in South Africa. Most foreign policy experts were blindsighted by the swift and mostly bloodless downfall of the Soviet Union in the early 90s. I could go on giving example after example from history, where what was once the status quo (and was even seen as the natural order of things) was radically changed in a relatively brief period to a state hardly imagined as possible by people living just decades earlier. Not only are such events plentiful in history, the rate at which such events are happening seems to be only increasing. The only thing certain about the future is that it's full of surprises. And the world is what we make it.