+++The domino effect

We're all familiar with the domino effect.

We're also familiar with the house of cards analogy.

Both of them are simple ways of showing how, in a complex world everything is connected. So if something changes somewere (and not necessarily significantly) it can have major effect somewhere else in the system. There might be some significant delay, or none at all. And even small changes might lead directly to collapse.

For example the 2008 economic crisis left many people in difficult and desperate financial circumstances. Many of these people came to recognise that the current political system was not serving their interests. And many of these voted for substantial change.

In Britain this in part led to Brexit - which itself further damaged Britain's economic well-being.

Thomas Homer-Dixon in his 2007 book The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilisation shows how we may well see a vicious spiral of shocks of declining resources, extreme climate events, economic decline and political chaos each affecting the others, and accelerating the collapse of our societies.

You can read my 2018 paper outlining this in more detail A Systems Thinking View of how change can happen (a 20 min read)

This is, to me, deeply shocking. We need to act seriously and fast!

When it happens, won't we ask ourselves "Why didn't we start working on this sooner?"