Perspectives on Exponential Change

There is no economic model that is prepared for the technology that is already here today, let alone where it goes from here.

Likewise, there is no government, no religion, no culture, no time-tested system anywhere that is prepared.

Because the speed of change is moving exponentially now, and all the things we’ve built and beliefs we hold are incrementally constructed artifacts of history.

Imagine you’re looking at an exponential growth curve like this… Now if you were standing in the middle of the curve, it looks like this from the side, right?

But what if you look at the curve itself from there? What do you see?

Looking down the curve, you’d see a gentle incline to the slope where you are standing. Maybe something like this…

Now if you were to guess what’s behind you – that is what change looks like from here – you’d probably say it looks pretty similar to what you see in front of you. Maybe little a bit steeper of a hill, given the slant of the slope you’re standing on.

But now if you turn 180 degrees to face the curve upward…what do you see? Something more like this…

The slope you’re standing on is still the same one, but within an uncomfortably short distance from your nose is an angle so steep that from this perspective it looks almost like a straight vertical up. Between your feet and your knees you can see a bit of a curve, but that’s it.

Again, imagine what’s behind you from this perspective. But now the other behind you. If you were to look at this wall of future and guess what the slope of past looks like, would you guess it was the flat looking gentle slope of horizontal behind you? Or would you imagine something more like standing on a cliff face?

See, that’s the thing about exponentials. We have no intuition for this, our guesses are predictably atrocious and even people who really do know better get it wrong all the time and always in the same way. It’s hard for us. 

But it’s not hard at all, as a concept. It’s just hard for us, because it feels like a trick every time

There’s no trick. It’s just a curve. The kind of curve we’re tragically bad at.

We know what happens when the road curves, and we don’t. Crash!

Now we simply need to learn to navigate this curve so we don’t crash and burn. I believe that we can learn to drive our future, and we will!

But not by looking at where we’ve been and making assumptions. Only by looking at where we’re going and setting our course.

Otherwise the hockey stick of exponential change hits us upside the head. And nobody likes that.