PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

3. INANIMATE PRODUCTION LIKE ANIMATE REPRODUCTION
available, which could easily accommodate the huge animal. If the
movie is made again in a few decades, these vessels will no longer exist,
and King Kong may very well be forced to swim to civilization.
Supertankers are sea vessels with a carrying capacity of more than
three hundred thousand tons. A global fleet of 110 supertankers was
constructed in the 1970s; construction ended less than ten years later.
The wave of supertankers came and went like a fad. Its lifetime was so
short that one may be tempted to consider the whole affair as an experiment
that failed. Smaller tonnage ships seemed to have better
survival characteristics. Thus constrained by a competitive squeeze, the
supertanker population followed the pattern of a species’ growth as
beautifully evidenced by a precisely outlined S-curve (Appendix C, Figure
3.4). Once the ceiling was reached, construction ended, and some
time afterward such ships began becoming decommissioned. Monster
supertankers are heading for extinction, without being replaced.
Over the centuries society’s spotlights have shone on structures of
even more extravagant scale. Two such examples are Gothic cathedrals
and particle accelerators. Like supertankers, their life cycles are also
characterized by a natural-growth curve. As the populations of both
reach the ceiling, obsolescence sets in, and society no longer invests
funds or energy in them.
Construction of Gothic cathedrals began at the end of the eleventh
century. These endeavors represented formidable undertakings, and their
realization became possible only through the cooperation of groups with
disparate identities: clergy, architects, masons, royalty and peasant
communities. These groups, with mostly conflicting interests, collaborated
for decades to complete the work. The interest in such monumental
buildings grew and spread over Europe spontaneously and rapidly. During
the twelfth century cathedral cornerstones were being laid in cities
across Europe in quick succession. Many cathedrals were being built
simultaneously. It was not the magnificence of a completed work that
inspired new undertakings. New ones were begun before the old ones
were completed. Europe seemed to have become a fertile ground for a
population of cathedrals. During a period of 150 years the rate of appearance
of new cathedrals peaked and then declined. By 1400 no more
cathedrals were being started; the population had reached its ceiling like
a species that has filled up its ecological niche.
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