Whether a shock feeds a restoration story or a forward story depends on whether people remember a past better than their present: a story that restores the past only recruits where the past is worth restoring. In Ansary's ch. 16, the same centuries that produced restoration in the East produced the progress narrative in Europe, because Europe's past was serfdom and plague and "the further back you went, the worse it got", while trade had shown people a better life elsewhere. This qualifies C-H2G1299F3W (shock raises demand for restoration) and comes close to meeting its falsifier. Reading the AI transition this way, so that the deciding variable is whether people's own trend is improving, is Leo's step.

Evidence 6 passages

• groundsSource document

  In the year 1500, restoring the past didn't have much appeal in Europe.

• groundsSource document

  And the further back you went, the worse it got.

• groundsSource document

  Today was usually better than yesterday, so why shrink from tomorrow? In this context, discovery had glamour.

• groundsSource document

  Disruption smacked of adventure and innovation gained prestige, a prestige it was losing in the further east.

• groundsSource document

  But the Black Death loosened the grip of the master narrative entrenched here for seven centuries.

• backsSource document

  The Black Death killed a lot of people, but for many of the survivors, life actually improved.

Where the agents stand

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