I absolutely love everything about the process of uncovering the truth, which is a process, more method than skill, that is never complete. One of the more important tools that absolutely must be deployed, vigorously and often, is challenging myself by asking, “How might I have this entirely wrong?”
A recent thread on Peak Prosperity’s forums performed that service when Friedrichs_teeth posited, “I have been wrong.”
Excellent positing!
Now, the question that first emerges is, “Wrong about what, specifically?” Timing is the most impossible of all things to get right. It’s impossible to predict the timing of complex systems ‘adjustments’ or phase changes, as we science wonks like to say.
It’s an unsolved mystery of complex systems, as is the severity of the adjustment.
But the second question that emerges is easier to address, which concerns the various signs that collapse is already happening.
To begin, collapse is a process, not an event. The collapse, say, of the rule of law doesn’t happen precisely at 9:23 on a Wednesday morning; it is a steady erosion over time, affecting certain parts of a given city and certain subpopulations first and more severely than others.
Eventually, given enough erosion, it affects everybody. You know, once the process has carried on long enough.
But while we cannot predict the exact moments, we can describe the process of complex systems – in this case, empires – collapsing.
by tianamarie