In this ongoing study of innovation and progress, we have explored these questions from different angles: foundational breakthroughs, incremental improvements, the synthesis and integration of diverse innovations into something much more effective, and much else besides. We have also explored this in a chronological manner with the two main early periods covered being the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, much of the latter story being part of what is generally considered the Classical Era.

We saw, in Episode 20 - Systems Scaling, Systems Shattered, how after rising to great heights, the Bronze Age in many areas, came crashing down in a sudden collapse. We now come to a similar milestone at Episode 30.

I promised in Episode 21, Schumpeterian Renewal, that I would revisit some of the questions posed during that turning point in Episode 30. Some of the...

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Article written by Ash Stuart

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Further Reading & Reference

* Holland, Tom (2004). Rubicon. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385503136.

* Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - (historiographically dated but a classic).

* Scheidel, Walter (2021). Escape from Rome. The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691216737.

What happens when the very innovations that propel a system to greatness become the instruments of its undoing? When does ingenuity itself turn against the structures it helped create?

Picture breakthrough institutional technologies - mechanisms so powerful they reshape entire regions, so effective they seem unshakeable. These innovations don't just solve immediate problems; they create new realities, new possibilities, new ways of organizing human potential. But what occurs when such systems encounter the limits of their own success?

Consider how scaling transforms everything. The very mechanisms that enable growth can become points of strain. The innovations that bring triumph can carry within them the seeds of their own reversal. How do we measure when such systems truly reach their breaking point?

Think about the challenge of identifying true endpoints in complex innovation networks. When foundational breakthroughs outlive their original frameworks, when core innovations persist through institutional upheaval, how do we determine what constitutes collapse?

What patterns emerge when institutional technologies face overwhelming expansion? How do breakthrough models handle the stresses of their own achievement? And perhaps most intriguingly—which innovations survive when their parent systems fracture?

These questions become particularly acute during those pivotal moments when established systems face their greatest tests. The relationship between innovation success and systemic strain reveals itself most clearly during such periods of institutional stress.

Join Ash Stuart as he reveals how the march of ingenuity can become a painful reversal, and why understanding system overreach matters more than we might imagine.

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When we seek to understand how innovation works, how it could lead to lasting improvements in the story of human progress, we have to explore: what are the sources of that innovation, where, or from what different directions, does the impetus for innovation come from. I’d like to think I’ve been doing this satisfactorily enough already, but today let’s take a closer look at a certain dichotomy I’ve hinted at now and then, with regard to this question - this matters because it also goes to the very heart of organization, all organization.

Click here to read the full articles including notes and supplements.

Article written by Ash Stuart

Images and voice narration generated by AI

Further Reading & Reference

* Ridley, Matt. (2016). The Evolution of Everything - How New Ideas Emerge. Perennial. ISBN 978-0062296016.

* Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James. (2013). Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. Crown Currency. ISBN: 978-0307719225.

* Ryan, Martin; Higham, Nicholas. (2015). The Anglo-Saxon World. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300216134

* Bingham, Harry. (2007). This Little Britain: How One Small Country Changed the Modern World. Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-0007258482.

* Willetts, David. (2019). The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children’s Future - And Why They Should Give It Back. Atlantic Books. 978-1786491220.

* Conc 01 - Are Language Models just Parrots? - I discuss the distinctions between top-down conventional computers and bottom-up AI

* Econ 10 - The Free Market of the Creative Commons - Common Law in practice within the Open Source ecosystem