Putting tipping points into context
When you start to see the world as a massively complex self-adapting system with its innumerable actors and all its tipping points — as discussed in Part 1 of this essay — you start to see phase transitions everywhere.
The world as we know it is about cross several tipping points as we speak. We are amidst a massive sea change, triggered unwillingly by human activity, and controlled by absolutely no one. We have started to rock the chair, and now we are about experience what the world looks like on the other side.
We have entered a forest packed full of booby traps, tripwires and snares, where hitting one could offset ten other in a rapid chain reaction. The issues we think of as unrelated are in fact part of a much larger story. Resource depletion. Wars. Deforestation. Drought. Dependence on fertilizers. Ocean dead zones. The list goes on.
In this sense, it is both frightening and entertaining to see monkeys dressed up in a suit and tie, with all their diplomas from law, political ‘science’ and neoclassical economics, trying to act like they had an idea on where things are going… and see how they are making things only worse by doing so.
Much worse, much faster than it would otherwise had to be.
Near the tipping point any system’s ability to bounce back from hardships — aka its resilience — diminishes (be it the global climate, or the human economy) besetting the system with ever longer recovery times and a heightened sensitivity to even the smallest of disturbances. Just like in our chair-rocking example: it gets harder and harder to maintain your balance as you approach the point of no return.
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