Chapter 2
Complexity Time Bomb
When Systems Get Out of Control
The digital revolution produces more data, more speed, more connectivity, and more
complexity. Besides creating new opportunities, how will this change our economy and our
societies? Will it make our increasingly interdependent systems easier to control? Or are we
heading towards a systemic collapse? In order to figure out what needs to be done to fix the
world’s ills, we must explore why things, as they currently stand, go wrong. The question
is, why haven’t we learned how to deal with them yet?
These days, we seem to be surrounded by economic and socio-political crises,
by terrorism, conflict and crime. More and more often, the conventional “medicines” to tackle these sorts of global problems turn out to be inefficient or even
counter-productive. It is increasingly evident that we approach these problems with
an outdated understanding of our world. While it may still look more or less as it
looked for a long time, the world has changed inconspicuously but fundamentally.
We are used to the idea that societies must be protected from external threats
such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and military attacks by enemies.
Increasingly, however, we are threatened by different kinds of problems that come
from within the system, such as financial instabilities, economic crises, social and
political unrest, organized crime and cybercrime, environmental change, and the
spread of diseases. These problems have become some of the greatest threats to
humanity. According to the “risk interconnection map” published by the World
Economic Forum, the greatest risks faced by our societies today are of socioeconomic and political nature.
1 These risks, including factors such as economic
inequality and governance failure, are twenty-first century problems which cannot
be solved with twentieth century wisdom. They are larger in scale than ever before
and result from the complex interdependencies in today’s anthropogenic systems.
As a result, it is of paramount importance that we develop a better understanding
of the characteristics of complex dynamical systems. To this end, I will discuss the
main reasons why things go wrong, such as unstable dynamics, cascading failures
1 World Economic Forum, The Global Risks Report 2013 and 2014, see http://www3.weforum.org/
docs/WEF_GlobalRisks_Report_2013.pdf; http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalRisks_
Report_2014.pdf.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
D. Helbing, Next Civilization,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62330-2_2
17
Complexity Time Bomb
When Systems Get Out of Control
The digital revolution produces more data, more speed, more connectivity, and more
complexity. Besides creating new opportunities, how will this change our economy and our
societies? Will it make our increasingly interdependent systems easier to control? Or are we
heading towards a systemic collapse? In order to figure out what needs to be done to fix the
world’s ills, we must explore why things, as they currently stand, go wrong. The question
is, why haven’t we learned how to deal with them yet?
These days, we seem to be surrounded by economic and socio-political crises,
by terrorism, conflict and crime. More and more often, the conventional “medicines” to tackle these sorts of global problems turn out to be inefficient or even
counter-productive. It is increasingly evident that we approach these problems with
an outdated understanding of our world. While it may still look more or less as it
looked for a long time, the world has changed inconspicuously but fundamentally.
We are used to the idea that societies must be protected from external threats
such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and military attacks by enemies.
Increasingly, however, we are threatened by different kinds of problems that come
from within the system, such as financial instabilities, economic crises, social and
political unrest, organized crime and cybercrime, environmental change, and the
spread of diseases. These problems have become some of the greatest threats to
humanity. According to the “risk interconnection map” published by the World
Economic Forum, the greatest risks faced by our societies today are of socioeconomic and political nature.
1 These risks, including factors such as economic
inequality and governance failure, are twenty-first century problems which cannot
be solved with twentieth century wisdom. They are larger in scale than ever before
and result from the complex interdependencies in today’s anthropogenic systems.
As a result, it is of paramount importance that we develop a better understanding
of the characteristics of complex dynamical systems. To this end, I will discuss the
main reasons why things go wrong, such as unstable dynamics, cascading failures
1 World Economic Forum, The Global Risks Report 2013 and 2014, see http://www3.weforum.org/
docs/WEF_GlobalRisks_Report_2013.pdf; http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalRisks_
Report_2014.pdf.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
D. Helbing, Next Civilization,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62330-2_2
17