Exponential processes are counterintuitive. And we struggle to grasp them. Thomas Malthus, the eighteenth-century political economist, first articulated the problem. According to Malthus, the human population tends to grow exponentially – but we won’t realise the power of that exponential growth until too late. Eventually, human needs will outgrow our ability to produce food, bringing famine and pestilence. Malthus’s dire predictions did not come to pass, thanks to the extraordinary increases in productivity brought about by the industrial revolution. But his basic insight – that we
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