Hacker News Books

That criticism is pretty applicable to The Sun Also Rises. Two great sentences and a lot of setting description.

> "How did you go bankrupt?" Bill asked.

> "Two ways," Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly."

In other words, at all times, Mike's march to bankruptcy was always obvious, but somehow he couldn't see it, or do anything about it, until it was too late!

If you read accounts about inflation in the mid to late 1970's, you'll see that by the time inflation started getting out of control, it was too late to prevent it. Inflation couldn't be brought under control until Paul Volcker aggressively raised interest rates, which was very painful for a lot of businesses and a lot of people. 10-year treasuries hit 16%/year. Mortgage rates hit 20%/year. Valuations for all kind of assets hit rock bottom.

It's not too hard to imagine the following Q&A a few years from now in some congressional hearing:

> Q: "How did inflation get so out of control?"

> A: "Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly."

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

- From The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.

So, I am not encouraged by trends - populism, protectionism, increasing divide between haves and have-nots, climate problems, resource competition (such as for water), and suchlike - but I would not expect a tipping point for a while.

I am not in a position to predict anything, I lack the expertise/data, and my record for, say, trying to predict markets (this property boom can't last, this stock-price boom can't last, etc ad nauseam) is abysmal.

That being said, I can't imagine that 50 to 100 years out that push will not have come to shove and societal collapse will, at the very least, have pretty much ended aspirational notions of or for a global society progressing towards better and better outcomes for all.

The good news: I've always been wrong before :-)