Let me pose a question: if a butterfly flaps its wings in the heart of Brazil's most populated city and a typhoon begins to brew in Chicago, did either of these events effect the other one or cause it to occur? Well what if I told you that the answer is yes? According to The Butterfly Effect, the smallest of occurrences can have non-linear impacts on something way greater. Now it's not claiming that the flaps of a butterfly's wings have the intense meteorological properties to gather enough energy to set off a typhoon, but rather that this seemingly unimportant action can be a catalyst to something evidently more widespread.
The Butterfly Effect was founded by Edward Lorenz, a meteorologist and mathematician in the 1950s. He initially came up with the effect after deducting that weather predictions will always be inaccurate as knowing the exact starting condition and location of a weather model is impossible. He claimed that even the tiniest change can throw a model off, thus giving birth to the butterfly analogy. A butterfly flapping it's wings creates but tiny changes in the atmosphere and even within it's unimportance, it could alter the trajectory of a tornado or a typhoon. The symbolism in the butterfly wings represents the minuscule changes in the atmosphere that could have colossal repercussions.
Lorenz was basically saying that everything effects, well, everything. In philosophical terms, your actions may set off massive consequences that you couldn't even dream of causing. I bet you wouldn't think that one wrong turn on a street would set off a whole war but that's where you're wrong. On June 28th, 1914, the driver of Archduke Franz Ferdinand made a wrong turn onto Franz Josef Street and not only set off one of the greatest Butterfly Effects in history but also kickstarted World War I. In a nearby sandwich shop, was nineteen year old anarchist and Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip who traveled to Sarajevo, Bosnia to kill the Archduke. Earlier in the day, his plan of a bomb annihilation of Ferdinand had failed and it had gotten him hungry so, he decided to stop for some food. In this very moment, the driver of the Archduke took a wrong turn onto the same exact street that Princip was on and Princip seized the opportunity. He fired into the car and killed Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, catalyzing the start of World War I.
Basically in simple terms, the moral of the effect lies in this: be careful of your words and actions. It takes two seconds to take a step back and reconsider a malicious comment or harmful interaction. You may not realize it in the moment but you play a crucial role in this cosmic diegesis. The universe possess a greater power than man knows and it owes no explanation of it's chain of events. Think before you act, it could save lives.
