Cycles of Change

Complex societies operate through multi-party transactions that require trust to function. When trust degrades, these systems do not fail linearly. They collapse multiplicatively. Understanding this mechanism explains why institutional decay accelerates during periods of social upheaval and why [...]

We are watching the end of a long cycle. For decades, we lived in a world where trust was abstract. We trusted banks because of their marble lobbies. We trusted universities because of their ivy walls. We trusted currency because of the government seal on the paper. This was a time of high social [...]