A random thought of my own: however unlikely it may seem but I managed to find a common denominator between DameonRules' and Timber's posts. The notion that terrorism is a phenomenon that first appeared in world history in 2001, or shortly before that.
Other than that, Timber, however thought-provoking your post sure is, it seems to me you might be overestimating the demonstrative hence educational value of the "grand theory of everything at the expense of a myriad of oversimplifications and sweeping generalizations"-approach. I'll grant you though that the entertainment value is considerable.
