“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”
It is lines like this in The Sun Also Rises, that made Ernest Hemingway a famous writer. Gradually, then suddenly. It is reminiscent of a famous line by Kenny Rogers and others,
“I worked for 15 years to become an overnight success.”
“Gradually, then suddenly” is a phenomenon that applies in a wide range of physical and social contexts. In a previous substack article I told the story of how a plugged mill hole in an underground mine broke the frictional bonds that held it up - gradually, then suddenly. Anyone who has ever watched the ice break in a northern river will know that it always happens the same way - gradually, then suddenly. Jan Rosenow has a thesis about how frictional or socioeconomic resistance to changes in energy policy results in gradual change until the frictional forces are overcome and policy changes dramatically. Gradually, then suddenly.
This phenomenon is also known as the sandpile theory of sudden collapse and is premised on the notion that sandpiles are inherently stable as the sand is added until suddenly the added complexity of the system (critical slope) destroys the stability of the sand pile in a catastrophic collapse - gradually, then suddenly.
As an interesting aside, in the year 2000, MIT professor Peter Huber added an important distinction to the description of the phenomenon by pointing out that some structures defy the theory. If complexity is our problem and the cause of our doom, how is it that nature is more complex than our technology? How do we explain the amazing stability in the complex, natural world? He argues that technology which becomes more and more complex will converge to a state of simplicity that is governable and can be controlled. It is not infinitely complex. The human body has billions of cells any of which can become cancerous, yet the risk of cancer can be calculated and is quite small. The complex jumbo jet is more reliable than the simple Kittyhawk. He proposes a redemptive rather than sustainable model of development. In his words,
“In the real world there is more stabilizing, negative feedback than destabilizing, positive feedback. Real systems generally adapt, heal and compensate…. The feedback loops of higher technology are designed layer upon layer to be healing and robust.”
This is an argument that has been picked up by Alex Epstein in his new book “Fossil Future; Why global human flourishing requires more oil, coal, and natural gas - not less”. Epstein’s argument is that sustainability is the wrong framing for the net zero debate, and rather than simplifying our world by de-populating it through bad energy policy, we should be arguing for maximal human flourishing through creative new applications of available, efficient hydrocarbon energy sources. Epstein would agree with Huber’s conclusion,
“Like the other two secular religions of this century, [the Green agenda] is pre-occupied with ineluctable historical imperatives, the grand sweep of things, not day-to-day or even year-to-year, but decade-to-decade, century-to-century. Seizing intellectual control of the long-term factual future is politically powerful. But it is also the opiate of the evil politician, an ethical poison that can end up justifying any amount of viciousness in the present, for the good of the distant future.”
Ok that last bit was a detour… Why am I writing about gradually, then suddenly? Because this has been a week like few others.
On March 6 Tucker Carlson showed video tapes that demonstrated that the January 6 committee of the last Congress was parsimonious with the truth. The insurrection was pretty tame, FBI operatives were involved in fomenting what violence there was, Officer Sicknick was not killed at the Capitol and a bunch of testimony might amount to perjury.
Dr. Redfield, past Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave shocking testimony of the origin of the SARS-Cov2 virus and called into question all the previous testimony by Anthony Fauci regarding the lab leak theory and the role of the National Institute of Health in funding gain of function research. One must believe that Dr. Fauci is either lawyering up to protect his reputation or booking flights to Argentina.
A federal judge ruled that all the regulatory changes used by the Biden administration to open the southern border of the United States to massive illegal immigration are themselves, illegal. The federal government has been given seven days to reverse its policies and bring the border back under control.
Matt Taibbi and Michael Schellenberger, both of whom voted for Joe Biden, demonstrated in congressional hearings that significant breeches in First Amendment protections occurred as a result of social media companies conspiring with US intelligence agencies to cancel certain accounts and information.
A US ex-Marine volunteer in Ukraine released a video this week in which he stated that new recruits in the fight for Bakhmut are told that their life expectancy is four hours. Then came the admission that Bakhmut, Ukraine’s Alamo, has been lost to the Russians but it isn’t a very important or strategic position after all. This is small consolation for those who gave the last full measure of their devotion. [Mr. Zelensky has since changed course and is putting more troops into the area to hold the town.]
That was followed with news that a "Ukrainian group" blew up the Nord Stream pipelines. This has been rejected as false by President Zelensky and some military pundits called it the “Gilligan’s Island” theory of the CIA and laughable on its face giving greater credence to the claims of Seymour Hirsch that US army divers blew up the pipeline.
The Chinese government announced yesterday that a business partnership has been created between China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran and Saudi Arabia have been at each other’s throats for decades. Saudi Arabia has been a strategic partner of the United States since the Second World War trading stable oil prices for a US defense shield. When the Saudis told President Biden that they would not pump more oil for him, they really meant it.
Greta Thunberg deleted a 2018 tweet claiming that “climate change will wipe out humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.” New data I suppose.
Joe Biden approved the large Willow oil development on the north slope of Alaska. Not many saw that coming and especially not his environmentalist supporters.
The Chair of the Federal Reserve testified before the Senate this week that he has no intention of backing off continued interest rate hikes and some pundits are still calling for the Fed rate to exceed six percent even with the banking problems.
On Friday, the Silicon Valley Bank, went into regulatory protection to counter an uncontrolled run on its deposits. The bank is used by many of the tech companies in California and less than 95% of the deposits are covered by deposit insurance. The bank invested heavily in US Treasuries and bonds and the collapse of the bond market in the high interest rate environment precipitated the bank’s problems. Two other banks have since joined SVB.
According to the authors of the eponymous book, this is the nature of fourth turnings… gradually, then suddenly. I have heard the past week called “the week of the big reveal”.
In the years immediately prior to 1848, Europe was economically and socially stable under the diplomacy of the Great Powers. The disturbances of 1830 were in the distant past and the cork was in the bottle. In 1848, the cork blew off the bottle and Europe was rattled by a series of unconnected but similar revolutions. Everything changed; gradually, then suddenly. Revolutions are like that.
I am a big fan of an author called Eugyppius (A plague chronicle). Lately he has been discussing the degree of evil involved in the government decisions of the past three years and asking whether we have been subjected to a calculated attack by evil agents working on a nefarious agenda of world domination or have we been subjected to the self-interested idiocy of plodding careerists?
The recent revelations in the so-called “Hancock files” have been instructive and I agree with Eugyppius’ view,
Because we’re not in power, we can’t risk making these men more than they are. The correct strategy is instead to cut them down to size via relentless ridicule. We must mock them everywhere as the visionless, unoriginal, plodding careerists that they at every moment prove themselves to be. We have to chip away every day at the technocratic cult surrounding people like Fauci and Drosten.
“Gradually, then suddenly” is an interesting observation but so what? I think Smaug is awake. I think we are in for some wild times both economically and socially. I think it is impossible to predict, at this point, what our world will look like in two years. I also think it is going to be an exciting time for those who can watch from the sidelines, a position in which I hope to place myself.
The Silicon Valley Bank is in trouble today because it invested heavily in US Treasury notes and bonds. When did that kind of investment become high risk? How high will these troubled waters rise and how do we keep our heads above the tidal surge? Interesting questions demand answers.