The Failure of Exponential Systems - Grasshoppers, Gorilla Harems and Debt Supercycles

I once witnessed first-hand a grasshopper plague in the mid-West. For 15 or 20 years, their numbers had been increasing, often doubling from one year to the next. The last year, by definition, was the worst because that was when demand for food vastly outstripped supply. What was merely a manageable nuisance the prior year became an obliterating crop-destroying machine the next. When the little green guys ran out of crops, they ate the paint off the barns, and most of them starved to death (great for the fishing season, though).

I sometimes think about our current economic situation from an anthropological standpoint, one from which I am wholly unqualified to speak. The last 80 years or so created the illusion that we were freed from the shackles of supply and demand, basic economics, etc.--that there is an unlimited supply of security, food, shelter and easy riches. It's like the last silverback that wanders into a banana plantation with his harem. No threat from other males, unlimited food and unlimited sex. There's a reason they call it "going ape shit".

Such is the nature of exponential systems. That's why I think Ray Kurzweil and the California techno-libertarians are way off base when they say the technological singularity is coming as soon as the 2030's. Assuming it's possible--and that's a big assumption--I'd say the 2070's to 2080's, at least. We've got the Fourth Turning, the end of a debt supercycle and increasing institutionalized suffocation of creativity. Just as people will be shocked when longevity of the elderly decreases, they'll be shocked when Moore's Law breaks this decade. The worst models are those that are used to justify infinite geometric expansion; however, those seem to be the most prevalent models in economics.

And, as long as we're on the subject of predictions, I agree with Jeffrey Tucker that the gentleman's hat is going to make a big comeback. Get yours now.