As if you didn't already have enough to be nervous about, here's something creepy to ponder as the new year opens.
This what-if isn't technological, social, political or even science-fictional. Rather, it's a bit of wholly unscientific, superstitious pattern-recognition. The last two centuries (and possibly more) didn't "start" at their official point, the turning of a calendar from 00 to 01. That wasn't when they began in essence, nor when they first bent the arc of history.
No. Each century effectively began in its 14th year.