Linear thinking (projecting trends as if they will continue indefinitely) is dangerous because many systems exhibit concavity (diminishing returns as you scale), such as industrialization growth, population growth, or return on investment, which means projections based on linear extrapolation will be wildly optimistic.
causalpending
Speaker
Scott PageEvidence Quote
“if you do a linear projection of China you know five years ago you either said oh my gosh you know by 2040 China's economy is gonna be used enormous but the reality is growths gonna fall off because what the model shows in order to maintain anything even close to linear growth you have to innovate like crazy [1:10:41]”
Source
Mental Models for complexity | Scott Page and Shane Parrish | The Knowledge Project #55— The Knowledge Project PodcastCreated: 8/10/2026, 11:30:19 PM
My Notes
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