8 quotes
As we begin to understand complex systems, we begin to understand that we’re part of an ever-changing, interlocking, non-linear, kaleidoscopic world.
W. Brian Arthur in: Mitchell M. Waldrop (2004)
Complexity theory is really a movement of the sciences.
Increasing-returns economics has roots that go back 70 years or more, but its application to the economy as a whole is largely new.
Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy (1994)
More than anything else technology creates our world. It creates our wealth, our economy, our very way of being.
The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves (2009)
A technology that by chance gains an early lead in adoption may eventually 'corner the market' of potential adopters, with the other technologies becoming locked out.
Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns and Lock-in by Historical Events (1989)
[Market outcomes] depends on the cumulation of random events.
Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns and Lock-in by Historical Events (1989)
Where we observe the predominance of one technology or one economic outcome over its competitors we should thus be cautious of any exercise that seeks the means by which the winner's innate 'superiority' came to be translated into adoption.
Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns and Lock-in by Historical Events (1989)
Our deepest hope as humans lies in technology; but our deepest trust lies in nature. These forces are like tectonic plates grinding inexorably into each other in one, long, slow collision.
This collision is not new, but more than anything else it is defining our era. Technology is steadily creating the dominant issues and upheavals of our time.
The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves (2009)