in the chemical way that these things happen

[sitifan]

What Nandan is saying, I thought to myself, is that the playing field is being flattened... Flattened? Flattened? I rolled that word around in my head for a while and then, in the chemical way that these things happen, it just popped out: My God, he's telling me the world is flat! (My bold.)
https://www.vpm.org/npr-news/2007-08-14/excerpt-the-world-is-flat
Source: The World Is Flat : A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, by Thomas L. Friedman, page 7.

What does the clause in bold mean?

 

[Rover_KE]

Source: ‘The World Is Flat’.

… and the author’s name is …

 

[sitifan]

… and the author’s name is …

Thomas L. Friedman.
https://www.amazon.com/World-Flat-History-Twenty-first-Century/dp/0374292884

 

[Skrej]

Everything that happens in our brain is chemistry and electrical signals born of chemistry.

His realization wasn't a conscious effort on his part.

The usual expression is to 'level the playing field'. "Flatten" here is probably tied into the book's title somehow.