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Quote by John L. Casti

“I believe is that we can forecast the "changing landscape of context," and thus get insight into when we are entering the danger zone of an X-event.”

Quote by John L. Casti

Author

John L. Casti is a renowned author and systems theorist, born in 1943. His works span a wide range of topics including complex systems, predictive models, and scientific philosophy, which have been well-received by both academics and the public. more

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“If the group has a negative social mood, believing that tomorrow will be worse than today, the bias goes in the opposite direction. Instead of "welcoming" we have "rejecting," instead of "global" we tend to see events that are "local" and so forth.”

Ifs Believe Today Social Groups Events Tomorrow Negative Opposites Mood Locals Welcome Bias Rejecting

Author:John L. Casti

“The global financial system consists of firms in the financial services sector - banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and the like - and various governmental agencies who are charged with regulating these firms.”

Company Financial Various Firm Agency Fund Insurance Companies Financial System Hedge Fund Financial Services

Author:John L. Casti

“From the 1990s onward, the financial sector created a vast array of instruments designed to separate investors from their money, financial derivatives of an ever-increasing level of complexity. At some point, this complexity reached a point where even the creators of the derivatives themselves didn't understand them.”

Levels Instruments Financial Creator Complexity Investors Derivatives

Author:John L. Casti

“A good analogy is stretching a rubber band. You can stretch and stretch and even feel the tension increase in the muscles in your hands and arms as the gap from one end of the band to the other widens. But at some point you reach the limits of elasticity of the band and it snaps. The same thing happens with human systems.”

Feels Humans Ends Hands Happens Arms Band Limits Increase Things Happen Tension Muscles Gaps Snaps Stretching Analogies Rubber Elasticity Rubber Bands

Author:John L. Casti

“When the next big problem comes online, be it the Euro crisis, nuclear proliferation, an overstretched Internet, a killer flu, or any of the other possibilities I consider in X-Events, we will suffer a complexity overload.”

Problem Bigs Suffering Next Events Possibility Internet Crisis Nuclear Complexity Online Killers Flu Euro Big Problems Proliferation Overload Nuclear Proliferation Euro Crisis

Author:John L. Casti

“The process of globalization has now interconnected almost everything ranging from financial markets to transport networks to communication systems in a huge system that no one really understands.”

Process Huge Communication Financial Globalization Transport Interconnected Financial Markets

Author:John L. Casti

“System theorists know that it's easy to couple simple-to-understand systems into a "super system" that's capable of displaying behavioral modes that cannot be seen in any of its constituent parts. This is the process called "emergence."”

Knows Easy Process Simple Couple Capable Emergence Constituents Theorists

Author:John L. Casti

“In fact, the very nature of an X-event is that it is both rare and surprising. So I would not say that any specific X-event is likely. What I would say, though, is that some X-event is not only plausible, but very likely in a time scale of a few years.”

Years Facts Events Scales Surprising Plausible

Author:John L. Casti

“The unfolding time for the end of globalization or a worldwide deflation is much longer, certainly measured in years, if not decades.”

Ifs Years Ends Decades Globalization Unfolding Deflation

Author:John L. Casti

“The world is awash in more debt than there is money enough in the world to liquidate it.”

World Enough Debt

Author:John L. Casti