“Biological systems are dynamical, not easily predicted, and are creative in many ways… In the old equilibrium worldview, ideas about change were dominated by the action-reaction formula. It was a clockwork world, ultimately predictable in boring ways.”

— Christopher Langton

Christopher Langton in: Roger Lewin (1990) Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos New York, Macmillan. p. 190 as cited in: Sohail Inayatullah (1994) " Evolution and Complexity http://www.metafuture.org/Articles/evolution-complexity.htm#_edn1"

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Christopher Langton11

American computer scientist 1949

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1980s, Evolutionary Economics, 1981, p. 44

“Conventional economic theory is built is built on the assumption of diminishing returns. Economic actions engender a negative feedback that leads to a predictable equilibrium for prices and market shares. Such feedback tends to stabilize the economy because any major changes will be offset by the very reactions they generate. The high oil prices of the 1970s encouraged energy conservation and increased oil exploration, precipitating a predictable drop in prices by the early 1980s. According to conventional theory, the equilibrium marks the “best” outcome possible under the circumstances: the most efﬁcient use and allocation of resources.”

W. Brian Arthur (1946) American economist

Source: Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy, (1994), p. 1: Chapter 1. Positive feedback in economics

“Too many rules and too much predictability absolutely kill creativity.”

Mike Krzyzewski (1947) American basketball player and coach

“Systems don't change easily. Systems try to maintain themselves, and seek equilibrium. To change a system, you need to shake it up, disrupt the equilibrium. That often requires conflict.”

Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan

Toward an Activist Spirituality (2003)
Context: Systems don't change easily. Systems try to maintain themselves, and seek equilibrium. To change a system, you need to shake it up, disrupt the equilibrium. That often requires conflict.
To me, conflict is a deeply spiritual place. It's the high-energy place where power meets power, where change and transformation can occur.

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

Alan Kay (1940) computer scientist

Alan Kay (1971) at a 1971 meeting of PARC http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/09/27/invent-the-future/ <br class="br">Similar remarks are attributed to Peter Drucker and Dandridge M. Cole. <br class="br">Cf. Dennis Gabor, Inventing the Future (1963): "The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented." <br class="br">Nigel Calder reviewed Gabor's book and wrote, "we cannot predict the future, but we can invent it..." <br class="br">1970s

“The best way to predict the future is to create it. ”

Форрест Шакли (1894–1985)

“This paper has attempted to go beyond the usual static analysis of increasing-returns problems by examining the dynamical process that 'selects' an equilibrium from multiple candidates, by the interaction of economic forces and random 'historical events'. It shows how dynamically, increasing returns can cause the economy gradually to lock itself in to an outcome not necessarily superior to alternatives, not easily altered, and not entirely predictable in advance.”

W. Brian Arthur (1946) American economist

p, 128
Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns and Lock-in by Historical Events, (1989)