Punctuate this

Punctuated equilibrium is one of those things I wish I'd known about before I finished Latent Vector.

In evolutionary theory, punctuated equilibrium is about how dinosaurs were doing just fine until the meteor hit; they weren't doing anything wrong, like polluting the oceans or putting monsters in positions of power, they were just unlucky in a way for which evolution couldn't prepare. In social theory, punctuated equilibrium applies to policy change in complex systems, which is less interesting to me.

(It's also a song by Scott "Wino" Weinrich that is... interesting.)

The trouble with futurism is it's always selective. A politician or an advertiser or an influencer is going to only share, and possibly only see, the data that tells their story. This surprises no one.

If one is a leader, though, and by that I mean someone who takes leadership seriously, that kind of selectivity is a flaw. See the forest and the trees, yes, but also see the drought, and the fire.

An example: the equilibrium of open source software is going to be eventually punctuated by some cataclysm related to the fragility of the supply chain, or the next generation of AI, or the expanding battle of East and West as concerning intellectual property and privacy, or a fragmentation of the internet, or quantum computing, or something else. Should we all just put down our pencils? Of course not. Should we continue to put all of our eggs in that basket? Probably, you know, not.

My books are about lifting our heads out of the sand so that we can react to all the signals around us. Are they correct? Time will tell, but probably not. However, simply trusting that the equilibrium will go unpunctuated - that's thinking like a dinosaur.