negative feedback loop

Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology Is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease and Inheritance
by Nessa Carey
Published 31 Aug 2011

A minus symbol shows the opposite effect, where one event decreases the level of activity of the next event in the chain. Figure 12.1 Signalling events in response to stress set up a cascade of events in selected regions of the brain that ultimately result in release of the stress hormone cortisol from the adrenal glands. Under normal circumstances, this system is controlled by a set of negative feedback loops that act to dampen down and limit the activation of the stress response pathways. Because of changes in the activities of the hippocampus in response to stress, the hypothalamus produces and releases two hormones, called corticotrophin-releasing hormone and arginine vasopressin. These two hormones stimulate the pituitary, which responds by releasing a substance called adrenocorticotrophin hormone which gets into the bloodstream.

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The three brain structures shown in our diagram all carry receptors that recognise cortisol. When cortisol binds to these receptors, it creates a signal that tells these structures to calm down. It’s particularly important for this to happen at the hippocampus, as this structure can send out signals to dampen down all the others involved in this signalling. This is a classic negative feedback loop. Production of cortisol feeds back on various tissues, and the final effect is that the production of cortisol declines. This stops us from being constantly over-stressed. But we know that adults who suffered traumatic childhoods are actually over-stressed. They produce too much cortisol, all the time.

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The key molecular factor in dampening down the stress responses in the well-nurtured rats was the expression of the cortisol receptor in the hippocampus. In these rats, the receptor was highly expressed. As a result, the cells of the hippocampus were very efficient at catching even low amounts of cortisol, and using this as the trigger to subdue the downstream hormonal pathway, through the negative feedback loop. This showed that levels of the cortisol receptor stayed high in the hippocampus, many months after the all-important licking and grooming of the baby rats. Essentially, events that only happened for seven days immediately after birth had an effect that lasted for pretty much all of a rat’s life.

The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update
by Donella H. Meadows , Jørgen Randers and Dennis L. Meadows
Published 15 Apr 2004

An increase will cause further increase; a decrease will eventually cause further decrease. In system dynamics the title positive loop does not necessarily mean that the loop produces favorable results. It simply refers to the reinforcing direction of the causal influence around the loop. Similarly, negative feedback loops, which we will discuss further in a moment, do not necessarily produce unfavorable results. In fact they're often stabilizing. They are negative in the sense that they counteract or reverse or balance causal influence around the loop. A positive feedback loop can operate as a "virtuous circle," or a "vicious circle," depending on whether the growth it produces is wanted or not.

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The larger the population, the more births per year. On the right is a negative feed back loop. Whereas positive loops generate runaway growth, negative loops tend to regulate growth, to hold a system within some acceptable range, or to return it to a stable state in which the system stocks have more or less constant values over time. A negative feedback loop propagates the consequences of a change in one element around the circle until they come back to change that element in a direction opposite to the initial change. Birth Feedback Loop and Death Feedback Loop The number of deaths each year equals the total population times the average mortality-the average probability of death.

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FIGURE 4-4 Feedback Loops Governing Population and Capital Growth The central feedback loops of the World3 model govern the growth of population and of industrial capital. The two positive feedback loops involving births and investment generate the exponential growth behavior of population and capital. The two negative feedback loops involving deaths and depreciation tend to regulate this exponential growth. The relative strengths of the various loops depend on many other factors in the system. Feedback loops in the diagrams are marked with (+) if they are positive loops-self-reinforcing loops that can generate exponential growth or exponential decline.

The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50
by Jonathan Rauch
Published 30 Apr 2018

It is about the slow-motion emotional reboot which makes the years after midlife surprisingly satisfying, and why evolution might wire us to reboot. It is about the dawn of a whole new stage of adult development which is already starting to reshape the way we think about retirement, education, and human potential. Along the way, I will introduce a young economist who discovered a negative feedback loop that manufactures midlife unhappiness without apparent cause. I’ll introduce psychologists and neuroscientists who are bringing to light the surprising payoffs, personal and social, awaiting on the far side of the slump. I’ll introduce a psychiatrist and a sociologist and others who are building a new science of wisdom and showing how aging equips us to be happier and kinder, even as our bodies get frailer.

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I had also apprised him of the voluminous research showing that the undercurrent normally does switch, around the time you think it never will. I wondered whether any of this information about the happiness curve was helpful to someone grinding through a slump. Would knowledge provide reassurance or hope of a path forward? Or is it just abstract science on the printed page? Not long after I showed him Hannes Schwandt’s negative feedback loop, he emailed back: “Wow.” He continued: “The expectations gulf =despair/etc. hypothesis makes sense in my case. My expectations for my marriage/career/etc. were not met by reality. Over the years, the disappointment piles up, and one eventually exclaims, ‘I have failed. This is a dead end.

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Jones, a psychologist and the director of the counseling center at East Tennessee State University, said he tries to emphasize that what people are going through is a transition rather than a crisis: a normal, albeit unpleasant, stage in adult development. Besides de-pathologizing a midlife slump, normalizing it can help interrupt the negative feedback loop that gives midlife discontent its peculiar ability to amplify itself. People feel disappointed and discontented, but then, looking around and finding no adequate justification for their feelings, they feel disappointed and discontented about feeling disappointed and discontented. Negative feedback can take hold quite independently of objective life circumstances.

European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics Are in a Mess - and How to Put Them Right
by Philippe Legrain
Published 22 Apr 2014

So it hardly needed an immediate dose of austerity and there was no fundamental reason for the soaring yields. Many investors were perplexed and thought the market reaction greatly overdone.269 That’s because the primary cause of the panic was not Italy but the instability of the system itself, which amplified the impact of any bond-market sell-off through a series of negative feedback loops. Until that summer, Italian banks had generally been in decent shape. But because of their large holdings of Italian government bonds, falling bond prices dealt them a nasty blow.270 Because other eurozone banks also held lots of Italian bonds, they too took a hit, sparking panic sales, causing them to cut off credit to businesses, and prompting fears that their own government would feel obliged to bail them out – but might not be able to.271 Once bond yields began rising, it became rational to sell because of fears that if others wouldn’t lend, governments would be forced to default.

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But because of their large holdings of Italian government bonds, falling bond prices dealt them a nasty blow.270 Because other eurozone banks also held lots of Italian bonds, they too took a hit, sparking panic sales, causing them to cut off credit to businesses, and prompting fears that their own government would feel obliged to bail them out – but might not be able to.271 Once bond yields began rising, it became rational to sell because of fears that if others wouldn’t lend, governments would be forced to default. Italy was particularly vulnerable because its refinancing and other borrowing needs exceeded other eurozone governments’ willingness or ability to lend. Because of these interconnections and negative feedback loops, individual governments’ actions could not hope to stabilise the system. The ECB needed to step in as lender of last resort. Lender of last resort Governments are continually issuing new bonds and refinancing old ones. So they are always at risk that lenders will take fright, drive up interest rates and ultimately refuse to lend altogether.

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Even dodgy German banks that enjoyed a government guarantee were awash with cash. Because of the ratchet effect of the doom loop, capital flight weakened banks, government and the economy in succession, increasing the perceived probability that the euro would break up and exacerbating the negative feedback loop. What was that about the Greek bailout averting a Lehman-style panic? In fact, the tug of war since that fateful mistake in May 2010 had even more devastating consequences. In effect, a Greek euro was no longer equivalent to a German one. Greek euros risked being redenominated into depreciating drachmas, while German ones might become appreciating Deutsche Marks.

Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection
by John T. Cacioppo
Published 9 Aug 2009

Frustration with the difficulty imposed by these terms can trigger hostility, depression, despair, impaired skills in social perception, as well as a sense of diminished personal control. This is when failures of self-regulation, combined with the desire to mask pain with whatever pleasure is readily available, can lead to unwise sexual encounters, too much to drink, or a sticky spoon in the bottom of an empty quart of ice cream. Once this negative feedback loop starts rumbling through our lives, others may start to view us less favorably because of our self-protective, sometimes distant, sometimes caustic behavior. This, in turn, merely reinforces our pessimistic social expectations. Now others really are beginning to treat us badly, which seems like adding insult to injury, which spins the cycle of defensive behavior and negative social results even further downhill.

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The limited cognitive powers of the earliest hunter-gatherers, and the harshness of their environment, would not have allowed them the luxury of long bouts of passive melancholy, ambivalence, and soul searching. Over many millennia, however, with increasing intellectual and psychosocial complexity, a simple sequence of “go/stop/go again” has evolved into a vicious cycle of ambivalence, isolation, and paralysis by analysis—the standoff in which loneliness and depressive feelings lock into a negative feedback loop, each intensifying the effects and the persistence of the other. This is the situation in which we left our friend from Chapter One, Katie Bishop, sitting in front of the television, eating ice cream directly from the carton. If she were a character in a date movie, she might run down to Starbucks the next morning and spill her latte on the perfect someone, finding romance, companionship, and a wide social network of zany new friends.

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That’s why gaining freedom from loneliness requires a bit of retraining, and a bit of discipline—because the mind’s tendency to twist reality into shapes unrecognizable to others is nothing transitory or superficial. When we feel lonely, we are painfully aware that our social needs are not being met; at the same time, we have a greater tendency to see ourselves as having little control over our ability to fulfill those needs.14 The prejudiced opinions of others always play a role in this negative feedback loop. If people expect a new acquaintance to be fun and nice, they will behave in a fashion that draws out the pleasant and enjoyable side of that new acquaintance. If parents or teachers think a child is intelligent, they will do and say things that will encourage that child to exercise her intelligence.

Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us About Life, Love and Relationships
by Camilla Pang
Published 12 Mar 2020

I lived it up, however briefly, and I’d be willing to try something new like that again. At other times we want to create a negative feedback loop, to stop ourselves from doing something. To achieve this, we might focus harder on the problematic outcome of a certain behaviour, reminding the brain of the asymmetry between the reason we do a certain thing and the end point that it invariably leads us to – be that a hangover, a sugar headache or being sick because you pushed yourself too hard at the gym. These positive and negative feedback loops are constantly pinging across our brains, whether we pay any heed to them or not. My experience is that, the more conscious I am of their existence, and the harder I work to re-engineer them (reminding myself of those good or bad outputs, contra to expectations), the more in control of my state of mind I become.

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Left to grow and evolve unconsciously, it encourages us to dwell often negatively on our experiences and past decisions, reliving them in the seconds, months and even years afterwards. Our challenge with memory is not getting stuck in its maze of history, regrets or people and places we can never return to. If we’re being honest, most of us probably live more in the negative feedback loop than the positive: selectively accumulating the bad experiences and memories that chip away at our confidence and influence the trajectory of future judgements. But memory is also something we can’t live without. Something which, as I discovered, is too intrinsic an element of our humanity simply to strip out like a defective part in an engine.

Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive
by Carl Zimmer
Published 9 Mar 2021

When a driver puts a car on cruise control, the vehicle doesn’t simply spin its engine a fixed number of times a second. It continually adjusts the rate as it senses its acceleration. If the car heads down a hill, its sensors cause it to slow down. Once the car drops below the desired speed, it gently accelerates again. Negative feedback loops, as engineers refer to these designs, keep systems stable by pulling them back to a set point each time they’re disturbed. Bats use negative feedback loops not only to stay in flight but to keep their chemistry in balance. The sugar in their bloodstream remains exquisitely stable even as they feast on insects, burn fuel in flight and then fast during sleep. When bats sense that their blood sugar is rising, a blast of insulin triggers their cells to store away the extra supply.

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When bats sense that their blood sugar is rising, a blast of insulin triggers their cells to store away the extra supply. If the level of sugar in the blood drops a little, the cells release enough to bring it back up without overshooting. Bats have other negative feedback loops for their salt, potassium, and acidity. Like humans and other vertebrates, bats have a circulatory system powered by a beating heart that demands a steady pressure to work. To stay at that set point, bats use negative feedback to make their blood vessels relax and tighten. Bats also keep their bodies at a constant temperature.

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S., 192 Life Itself (Crick), 199 lipids and liposomes and alkaline vent theory, 247–48 and assembly theory, 289, 290 and astrobiology/exobiology research, 266 and DNA-reading technology, 230 and organic molecules in meteorites, 232–36 and philosophical trees, 266 and primitive cells, 226–29 and protocells, 242–45 and structure of membranes, 225–26 and volcanic hot springs research, 237–39 Liu, Daniel, 158 Loma Prieta earthquake, 231 London Zoo, 37 López-García, Purificación, 210 Lovelock, James, 252 lung function, 112, 121 Lunshof, Jeantine, 14–15 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), 17 maple trees, 102–10, 113, 124 marine bacteria, 211 Marine Biological Laboratory, 180 Mariner spacecraft, 251, 252 Mars, 251–59, 260, 272, 277 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 179–80 McKay, David, 256 McMath, Jahi, 55–62 medical ethics, 53–55, 123–24 Mednick, Gabe, 248–49 Meierhenrich, Uwe, 273 Meitner, Lise, 183 membranes and astrobiology/exobiology research, 266 and cell function, 26 and characteristics of life, 5 and DNA-reading technology, 229, 230, 242 and embryonic development, 28 and liposomes, 225–26 and origins of genes, 222 and origins of life theories, 244 and philosophical trees, 263 and Pseudomonas research, 118–19 and red blood cells, 211 and role of water, 46 and viruses, 204, 207–8 and volcanic hot springs research, 237, 246 and yeast cells, 169 memory, 83–84 messenger RNA, 72, 75, 248–49 metabolism and astrobiology/exobiology research, 252, 265, 290 and definitions of life, 109, 124, 199–200, 207, 222, 225, 270–71, 274–75 and enzymatic function, 173, 174 and hibernation, 93–101 and membranes, 225 and origins of life, 226, 235, 246–47 and slime molds, 84, 87–89 and snakes, 65–66, 67–77 and theoretical models of life, 283–84 and viruses, 207 meteorites Allan Hills 84001, 255–56, 257–58, 270, 277–78 Murchison meteorite, 227–28, 232, 236, 289 and the ocean floor environment, 153 and origins of life theories, 227–28, 232–33, 243–44 and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, 236 methane, 282 microscopes, 128, 171, 207, 243, 256 Miller, Stanley, 222, 237, 289 MinION sequencers, 241–42 mitochondria, 212–13, 215, 270 Mittlefehldt, David, 255–56 Mohl, Hugo van, 158 “Molecular Vitalism” (Kirschner, Gerhart, and Mitchison), 198 Mollaret, Pierre, 50–51 Mommaerts, Wilfried, 176 Monthly Magazine, 35 Moreira, David, 210 Morgan, Thomas Hunt, 185, 187 Moseley, Henry, 153 Mount Mutnovsky, 216–17, 237–38 Muller, Hermann, 185, 188 Muotri, Alysson, 7–12, 14 Murchison meteorite, 227–28, 232, 236, 289 Murray, John, 164–65 Murray, Joseph, 52–53 muscles and anatomy research, 137 and cell function, 26 and hibernation, 94 and irritability, 140, 144 and metabolic function, 67, 75, 76 and organoid research, 14 and slime mold metabolism, 89 and Szent-Györgyi’s research, 175–79, 181 and white-nose syndrome, 100 mutations and brain disorders, 7 and Crick’s DNA research, 196 and Crick’s general nature of life, 199 and cystic fibrosis, 112 and Darwinian evolution, 114–16 and definitions of life, 270 Delbrück’s research, 185–87, 185–88 and disease resistance, 101 and genetic disorders, 248 and Pseudomonas research, 119–21 and viruses, 123, 204, 205, 209, 211 See also evolution; genes and genetics myosin, 175–76, 179 myristic acid, 217 Nair-Collins, Michael, 59, 60–61 Nairne, James, 19 Nakagaki, Toshiyuki, 84 nanopore sequencers, 242, 261–62 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and astrobiology research, 199–200, 227–28, 250, 253–59, 262, 277–78 and definitions of life, 200, 209–10, 270, 272–73 and DNA sequencing in space, 242 and organoid research, 10 National Institute of Standards and Technology, 230 National Institutes of Health, 181 natural selection, 114–16, 119, 122–23, 157, 208, 270. See also evolution; genes and genetics Nature, xvi, 165, 195 Neanderthals, 269 Needham, John, 44–45 Needham, Joseph, 172–73 negative feedback loops, 96 Negraes, Priscilla, 12–13 Nelson, Amber, 67, 69 Nelson, David, 65, 67–70, 76–77 nematodes, 44–45, 46 nerve cells, 3–16, 129, 139–41, 269–70 neurological definitions of life, 55–62 neurological disorders, 11–12 neurotransmitters, 7 New Jersey Institute of Technology, 78–79 Newtonian physics, 182 New Yorker, 57 New York Times, xiv, 54, 195, 254 nitric acid, 149 noble water, 149, 281 northern long-eared bat, 92–101 nucleic acid, 185, 193, 240, 243 nucleotides, 217 ocean floor environment, xix, 153–56, 157–64 octanoic acid, 269 Of Molecules and Men (Crick), 197 Oken, Lorenz, 158 olivine, 246 1-pentanol, 269 Onnes, Heike Kamerlingh, 286 On the Origin of Species (Darwin), xvii, 159, 218 “On the Physical Basis of Life” (Huxley), 161–62 Oparin, Alexander, 219–24, 226 operationalism, 272–73 opium, 141–43 Opportunity rover, 260 orangutans, 37 organic chemistry and astrobiology/exobiology research, 265 and definitions of life, 144 and origins of life theories, 218, 223–24, 228, 235, 243–44 and primitive forms of life, ix and vitalism debate, 147, 150 organoids, 7–16, 33–34 organ transplants, 51–54 Oriental Memoirs (Forbes), 35 Origin of Life, The (Oparin), 220, 222 Origin of Life: Its Physical Basis and Definition (Burke), xv–xvi Origins and Habitability Lab, 260 Osborn Memorial Laboratories, 111 osteoclasts, 26 Ott, Isabel, 111–12, 117–21, 123, 124 Oxford Nanopore Technologies, 242 oxygen and brain function, 12 and chemistry of water, 149–50, 281, 282 and enzymatic action, 174 and exobiology, 252, 258 and lipids, 225 and metabolism, 70, 73, 98 and nitric acid, 150 and organ function, 47, 49–50, 55, 60 and origins of life theories, 174, 180, 219, 264, 282 and photosynthesis, 211, 221 and red blood cells, 212 paleoanthropology, 40 paralysis, 50 parthenogenesis, 214 Pasteur, Louis, xviii Peabody, Charles A., 22–23, 25 peptides, 285 personhood movement, 25, 27, 32 phages (bacteriophages), 122–23, 187, 206, 211 philosophical definitions of life, 272–75, 275–82.

Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code
by Matthew Cobb
Published 6 Jul 2015

At a conference in 1952 Szilárd and his Chicago colleague, Aaron Novick, described their hypothesis for how protein synthesis was controlled, focusing on how the cell knew when to stop synthesising a particular amino acid: ‘somehow the increased concentration of each amino acid depresses the rate of the individual steps of synthesis leading to the formation of that amino acid.’8 As more of a particular amino acid is produced, the rate at which it is synthesised slows down. Novick and Szilárd thought that protein synthesis involved a negative feedback loop, just like those seen in the cybernetic devices studied by Wiener a few years earlier. In 1954, Szilárd explained his idea to Monod. The Frenchman later admitted he found it ‘a rather startling assumption’ and did not agree. This was surprising, because a year earlier Monod had shown that the biosynthesis of some enzymes was suppressed by their respective end-products – a negative feedback loop – but had been unable to explain his finding.9 It took several years for Monod to realise the significance of what he had discovered.

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He was not impressed: ‘I want to read this article but so far I have not succeeded in getting beyond the first four paragraphs’, he told Wiener.9 If Weaver had ploughed on, he might have found the rest of the document more rewarding, for it marked a shift in scientific thinking. It put all systems on the same level, be they mechanical, organic or hybrid human–machine (as in the case of the anti-aircraft guns), and suggested that behaviour could be interpreted using the same principles and analysed in terms of the same negative feedback loops. When the paper was read to the small New York audience, the effect was electric. Neurophysiologist Warren McCulloch was particularly excited, as it coincided with the models of brain function that he was developing with Walter Pitts, an odd but brilliant 20-year-old maths prodigy.10 Even the anthropologist Margaret Mead was rapt: ‘I did not notice that I had broken one of my teeth until the Conference was over’, she later wrote.11 Although Wiener’s insight excited his academic colleagues, his attempt to build an anti-aircraft device that could be engineered into a battlefield version was upstaged by a rival top-secret project, which was jointly run by MIT and a private company, Bell Laboratories.

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The elective effects of agents other than the structural gene itself in promoting or suppressing the synthesis of a protein must then be described as operations which control the rate of transfer of structural information from gene to protein.49 The article described gene action as involving control mechanisms and suggested that an inducer ‘somehow accelerates the rate of information transfer from gene to protein’. The role of repression was to inhibit enzyme synthesis, but in a very different manner from the negative feedback loops that had been described by Yates and Pardee or Novick and Szilárd. Classic negative feedback involved the end-product of a reaction curtailing that reaction through some kind of protein–protein interaction. Repression involved the direct action of the repressor on the DNA of the structural gene itself.

The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
by Alan Cooper
Published 24 Feb 2004

Each new blade or accessory costs money for the manufacturer to build into the knife. The maker of the knife knows this, and each proposed new feature must pass a gauntlet of justification before it makes it into a shipping product. In engineering terms, this is called a negative feedback loop, in which intrinsic forces trend toward stability and equilibrium. For example, tire friction in your car creates a negative feedback loop in the steering system, so that when you release the wheel it tends to return to straight ahead. In the business of software-based products, a different system prevails. Because functions and features are added in intangible software code and not in tangible steel, copper, or plastic, it appears to traditional manufacturing executives that additional features are nearly cost free.

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He was proud of his ability to provide additional functionality for no apparent cost. It's cheaper to put an entire microprocessor in your car key, microwave, or cell phone than it is to put in discrete chips and electronic components. Thus, a new technical economy drives the design of the product. Adding physical controls to devices is still governed by the negative feedback loop of manufacturing costs, but the process of adding functions and features in software is not. To software makers, it seems virtually free to add features, so any proposed feature is assumed to be a good investment until proven otherwise. Without a governor, the product rapidly fills up with unwanted features, which means complexity and confusion for the user.

Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy--And How to Make Them Work for You
by Sangeet Paul Choudary , Marshall W. van Alstyne and Geoffrey G. Parker
Published 27 Mar 2016

Thus, the larger your network grows, the better your curation can become—a phenomenon we refer to as data-driven network effects. Of course, this is dependent on having well-designed curation tools that are continually tested, updated, and improved. By contrast, poor curation leads to greater noise, which makes the platform less useful and may even cause it to unravel. Such a negative feedback loop following the exponential growth of Chatroulette quickly led to an equally dramatic collapse. Chatroulette pairs random people from around the world for webcam conversations. People can leave a conversation at any time by initiating a new connection or simply by quitting. The strangely addictive site grew from twenty people at launch in late 2009 to more than 1.5 million users six months later.

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Initially, Chatroulette had no registration requirement and no controls of any kind, leading to what became known as the Naked Hairy Men problem. As the network grew without policing, a growing number of naked hairy men showed up to chat, leading many of the non-naked, non-hairy others to abandon the network. As legitimate users fled, the noise level on the platform increased, setting a negative feedback loop in motion. Chatroulette realized it needed to curate access in a way that scales with platform growth. The platform now lets users filter other users in addition to using algorithms to screen callers with undesirable images, and it is growing again—though more slowly than during its initial phase.

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If Uber attracts too many drivers relative to the number of riders, driver downtimes will go up; if Uber attracts too many riders relative to drivers, rider wait times will go up (see Figure 2.2, in which the resulting feedback loops have been inserted). FIGURE 2.2. David Sacks’s napkin sketch of Uber, with negative feedback loops inserted. In fact, this is happening already. As Uber reaches saturation within a given market, too many drivers conflict with one another, increasing downtimes and causing some drivers to abandon the market. The more complete depiction of Uber’s growth spiral in Figure 2.2 highlights the fact that a firm in a two-sided market must manage all four network effects.

Prosperity Without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow
by Tim Jackson
Published 8 Dec 2016

The dynamic nature of scarcity is critical in our ability to manage it. Limits to Growth highlighted a key distinction between positive and negative feedback loops in the dynamic relationships between technology, resources, consumption and impacts. Positive feedback tends to lead either to rapid growth or to rapid collapse. Negative feedback tends to suppress or balance such changes and establish the direction of change. Stability depends heavily on the relative strength of positive and negative feedback loops in a dynamic system. There is a particularly critical relationship between the speed of change of a system and the ease with which change can be managed.

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INDEX Locators in italic refer to figures absolute decoupling 84–6; historical perspectives 89–96, 90, 92, 94, 95; mathematical relationship with relative decoupling 96–101, 111 abundance see opulence accounting errors, decoupling 84, 91 acquisition, instinctive 68 see also symbolic role of goods adaptation: diminishing marginal utility 51, 68; environmental 169; evolutionary 226 advertising, power of 140, 203–4 Africa 73, 75–7; life-expectancy 74; philosophy 227; pursuit of western lifestyles 70; growth 99; relative income effect 58, 75; schooling 78 The Age of Turbulence (Greenspan) 35 ageing populations 44, 81 agriculture 12, 148, 152, 220 Aids/HIV 77 algebra of inequality see inequality; mathematical models alienation: future visions 212, 218–19; geographical community 122–3; role of the state 205; selfishness vs. altruism 137; signals sent by society 131 alternatives: economic 101–2, 139–40, 157–8; hedonism 125–6 see also future visions; post-growth macroeconomics; reform altruism 133–8, 196, 207 amenities see public services/amenities Amish community, North America 128 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Smith) 123, 132 angelised growth see green growth animal welfare 220 anonymity/loneliness see alienation anthropological perspectives, consumption 70, 115 anti-consumerism 131 see also intrinsic values anxiety: fear of death 69, 104, 115, 212–15; novelty 116–17, 124, 211 Argentina 58, 78, 78, 80 Aristotle 48, 61 The Art of Happiness (Dalai Lama) 49 arts, Baumol’s cost disease 171–2 assets, stranded 167–8 see also ownership austerity policies xxxiii–xxxv, 189; and financial crisis 24, 42–3; mathematical models 181 Australia 58, 78, 128, 206 authoritarianism 199 autonomy see freedom/autonomy Ayres, Robert 143 backfire effects 111 balance: private interests/common good 208; tradition/innovation 226 Bank for International Settlements 46 bank runs 157 banking system 29–30, 39, 153–7, 208; bonuses 37–8 see also financial crisis; financial system basic entitlements: enterprise as service 142; income 67, 72–9, 74, 75, 76, 78; limits to growth 63–4 see also education; food; health Basu, Sanjay 43 Baumol, William 112, 147, 222, 223; cost disease 170, 171, 172, 173 BBC survey, geographical community 122–3 Becker, Ernest 69 Belk, Russ 70, 114 belonging 212, 219 see also alienation; community; intrinsic values Bentham, Jeremy 55 bereavement, material possessions 114, 214–15 Berger, Peter 70, 214 Berry, Wendell 8 Better Growth, Better Climate (New Climate Economy report) 18 big business/corporations 106–7 biodiversity loss 17, 47, 62, 101 biological perspectives see evolutionary theory; human nature/psyche biophysical boundaries see limits (ecological) Black Monday 46 The Body Economic (Stuckler and Basu) 43 bond markets 30, 157 bonuses, banking 37–8 Bookchin, Murray 122 boom-and-bust cycles 157, 181 Booth, Douglas 117 borrowing behaviour 34, 118–21, 119 see also credit; debt Boulding, Elise 118 Boulding, Kenneth 1, 5, 7 boundaries, biophysical see limits (ecological) bounded capabilities for flourishing 61–5 see also limits (flourishing within) Bowen, William 147 Bowling Alone (Putnam) 122 Brazil 58, 88 breakdown of community see alienation; social stability bubbles, economic 29, 33, 36 Buddhist monasteries, Thailand 128 buen vivir concept, Ecuador xxxi, 6 built-in obsolescence 113, 204, 220 Bush, George 121 business-as-usual model 22, 211; carbon dioxide emissions 101; crisis of commitment 195; financial crisis 32–8; growth 79–83, 99; human nature 131, 136–7; need for reform 55, 57, 59, 101–2, 162, 207–8, 227; throwaway society 113; wellbeing 124 see also financial systems Canada 75, 206, 207 capabilities for flourishing 61–5; circular flow of the economy 113; future visions 218, 219; and income 77; progress measures 50–5, 54; role of material abundance 67–72; and prosperity 49; relative income effect 55–61, 58, 71, 72; role of shame 123–4; role of the state 200 see also limits (flourishing within); wellbeing capital 105, 107–10 see also investment Capital in the 21st Century (Piketty) 33, 176, 177 Capital Institute, USA 155 capitalism 68–9, 80; structures 107–13, 175; types 105–7, 222, 223 car industry, financial crisis 40 carbon dioxide emissions see greenhouse gas emissions caring professions, valuing 130, 147, 207 see also social care Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Williams) 213 causal path analysis, subjective wellbeing 59 Central Bank 154 central human capabilities 64 see also capabilities for flourishing The Challenge of Affluence (Offer) 194 change see alternatives; future visions; novelty/innovation; post-growth macroeconomics; reform Chicago school of economics 36, 156 children: advertising to 204; labour 62, 154; mortality 74–5, 75, 206 Chile xxxiii, xxxvii, 58, 74, 74, 75, 76 China: decoupling 88; GDP per capita 75; greenhouse gas emissions 91; growth 99; life expectancy 74; philosophy 7; post-financial crisis 45–6; pursuit of western lifestyles 70; relative income effect 58; resource use 94; savings 27; schooling 76 choice, moving beyond consumerism 216–18 see also freedom/autonomy Christian doctrine see religious perspectives chromium, commodity price 13 Cinderella economy 219–21, 224 circular economy 144, 220 circular flow of the economy 107, 113 see also engine of growth citizen’s income 207 see also universal basic income civil unrest see social stability Clean City Law, São Paulo 204 climate change xxxv, 22, 47; critical boundaries 17–20; decoupling 85, 86, 87, 98; fatalism 186; investment needs 152; role of the state 192, 198, 201–2 see also greenhouse gas emissions Climate Change Act (2008), UK 198 clothing see basic entitlements Club of Rome, Limits to Growth report xxxii, xxxiii, 8, 11–16, Cobb, John 54 collectivism 191 commercial bond markets 30, 157 commitment devices/crisis of 192–5, 197 commodity prices: decoupling 88; financial crisis 26; fluctuation/volatility 14, 21; resource constraints 13–14 common good: future visions 218, 219; vs. freedom and autonomy 193–4; vs. private interests 208; role of the state 209 common pool resources 190–2, 198, 199 see also public services/amenities communism 187, 191 community: future visions of 219–20; geographical 122–3; investment 155–6, 204 see also alienation; intrinsic values comparison, social 115, 116, 117 see also relative income effect competition 27, 112; positional 55–61, 58, 71, 72 see also struggle for existence complexity, economic systems 14, 32, 108, 153, 203 compulsive shopping 116 see also consumerism Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (CoP21) 19 conflicted state 197, 201, 209 connectedness, global 91, 227 conspicuous consumption 115 see also language of goods consumer goods see language of goods; material goods consumer sovereignty 196, 198 consumerism 4, 21, 22, 103–4, 113–16; capitalism 105–13, 196; choice 196; engine of growth 104, 108, 120, 161; existential fear of death 69, 212–15; financial crisis 24, 28, 39, 103; moving beyond 216–18; novelty and anxiety 116–17; post-growth economy 166–7; role of the state 192–3, 196, 199, 202–5; status 211; tragedy of 140 see also demand; materialism contemplative dimensions, simplicity 127 contraction and convergence model 206–7 coordinated market economies 27, 106 Copenhagen Accord (2009) 19 copper, commodity prices 13 corporations/big business 106–7 corruption 9, 131, 186, 187, 189 The Cost Disease: Why Computers get Cheaper and Health Care Doesn’t (Baumol) 171, 172 Costa Rica 74, 74, 76 countercyclical spending 181–2, 182, 188 crafts/craft economies 147, 149, 170, 171 creative destruction 104, 112, 113, 116–17 creativity 8, 79; and consumerism 113, 116; future visions 142, 144, 147, 158, 171, 200, 220 see also novelty/innovation credit, private: deflationary forces 44; deregulation 36; financial crisis 26, 27, 27–31, 34, 36, 41; financial system weaknesses 32–3, 37; growth imperative hypothesis 178–80; mortgage loans 28–9; reforms in financial system 157; spending vs. saving behaviour of ordinary people 118–19; and stimulation of growth 36 see also debt (public) credit unions 155–6 crises: of commitment 192–5; financial see financial crisis critical boundaries, biophysical see limits (ecological) Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi 127 Cuba: child mortality 75; life expectancy 74, 77, 78, 78; response to economic hardship 79–80; revolution 56; schooling 76 Cushman, Philip 116 Dalai Lama 49, 52 Daly, Herman xxxii, 54, 55, 160, 163, 165 Darwin, Charles 132–3 Das Kapital (Marx) 225 Davidson, Richard 49 Davos World Economic Forum 46 Dawkins, Richard 134–5 de Mandeville, Bernard 131–2, 157 death, denial of 69, 104, 115, 212–15 debt, public-sector 81; deflationary forces 44; economic stability 81; financial crisis 24, 26–32, 27, 37, 41, 42, 81; financial systems 28–32, 153–7; money creation 178–9; post-growth economy 178–9, 223 Debt: The First Five Thousand Years (Graeber) 28 decoupling xix, xx, xxxvii, 21, 84–7; dilemma of growth 211; efficiency measures 84, 86, 87, 88, 95, 104; green growth 163, 163–5; historical perspectives 87–96, 89, 90, 92, 94, 95; need for new economic model 101–2; relationship between relative and absolute 96–101 deep emission and resource cuts 99, 102 deficit spending 41, 43 deflationary forces, post-financial crisis 43–7, 45 degrowth movement 161–3, 177 demand 104, 113–16, 166–7; post-financial crisis 44–5; post-growth economy 162, 164, 166–9, 171–2, 174–5 dematerialisation 102, 143 democratisation, and wellbeing 59 deposit guarantees 35 deregulation 27, 34, 36, 196 desire, role in consumer behaviour 68, 69, 70, 114 destructive materialism 104, 112, 113, 116–17 Deutsche Bank 41 devaluation of currency 30, 45 Dichter, Ernest 114 digital economy 44, 219–20 dilemma of growth xxxi, 66–7, 104, 210; basic entitlements 72–9, 74, 75, 76, 78; decoupling 85, 87, 164; degrowth movement 160–3; economic stability 79–83, 174–6; material abundance 67–72; moving beyond 165, 166, 183–4; role of the state 198 diminishing marginal utility: alternative hedonism 125, 126; wellbeing 51–2, 57, 60, 73, 75–6, 79 disposable incomes 27, 67, 118 distributed ownership 223 Dittmar, Helga 126 domestic debt see credit dopamine 68 Dordogne, mindfulness community 128 double movement of society 198 Douglas, Mary 70 Douthwaite, Richard 178 downshifting 128 driving analogy, managing change 16–17 durability, consumer goods 113, 204, 220 dynamic systems, managing change 16–17 Eastern Europe 76, 122 Easterlin, Richard 56, 57, 59; paradox 56, 58 eco-villages, Findhorn community 128 ecological investment 101, 166–70, 220 see also investment ecological limits see limits (ecological) ecological (ecosystem) services 152, 169, 223 The Ecology of Money (Douthwaite) 178 economic growth see growth economic models see alternatives; business-as-usual model; financial systems; future visions; mathematical models; post-growth macroeconomics economic output see efficiency; productivity ‘Economic possibilities for our grandchildren’ (Keynes) 145 economic stability 22, 154, 157, 161; financial system weaknesses 34, 35, 36, 180; growth 21, 24, 67, 79–83, 174–6, 210; post-growth economy 161–3, 165, 174–6, 208, 219; role of the state 181–3, 195, 198, 199 economic structures: post-growth economy 227; financial system reforms 224; role of the state 205; selfishness 137 see also business-as-usual model; financial systems ecosystem functioning 62–3 see also limits (ecological) ecosystem services 152, 169, 223 Ecuador xxxi, 6 education: Baumol’s cost disease 171, 172; and income 67, 76, 76; investment in 150–1; role of the state 193 see also basic entitlements efficiency measures 84, 86–8, 95, 104, 109–11, 142–3; energy 41, 109–11; growth 111, 211; investment 109, 151; of scale 104 see also labour productivity; relative decoupling Ehrlich, Paul 13, 96 elasticity of substitution, labour and capital 177–8 electricity grid 41, 151, 156 see also energy Elgin, Duane 127 Ellen MacArthur Foundation 144 emissions see greenhouse gas emissions employee ownership 223 employment intensity vs. carbon dioxide emissions 148 see also labour productivity empty self 116, 117 see also consumerism ends above means 159 energy return on investment (EROI) 12, 169 energy services/systems 142: efficiency 41, 109–11; inputs/intensity 87–8, 151; investment 41, 109–10, 151–2; renewable xxxv, 41, 168–9 engine of growth 145; consumerism 104, 108, 161; services 143, 170–4 see also circular flow of the economy enough is enough see limits enterprise as service 140, 141–4, 158 see also novelty/innovation entitlements see basic entitlements entrepreneur as visionary 112 entrepreneurial state 220 Environmental Assessment Agency, Netherlands 62 environmental quality 12 see also pollution environmentalism 9 EROI (energy return on investment) 12, 169 Essay on the Principle of Population (Malthus) 9–11, 132–3 evolutionary map, human heart 136, 136 evolutionary theory 132–3; common good 193; post-growth economy 226; psychology 133–5; selfishness and altruism 196 exchange values 55, 61 see also gross domestic product existential fear of death 69, 104, 115, 212–15 exponential expansion 1, 11, 20–1, 210 see also growth external debt 32, 42 extinctions/biodiversity loss 17, 47, 62, 101 Eyres, Harry 215 Fable of the Bees (de Mandeville) 131–2 factor inputs 109–10 see also capital; labour; resource use fast food 128 fatalism 186 FCCC (Framework Convention on Climate Change) 92 fear of death, existential 69, 104, 115, 212–15 feedback loops 16–17 financial crisis (2008) 6, 23–5, 32, 77, 103; causes and culpability 25–8; financial system weaknesses 32–7, 108; Keynesianism 37–43, 188; nationalisation of financial sector 188; need for financial reforms 175; role of debt 24, 26–32, 27, 81, 179; role of state 191; slowing of growth 43–7, 45; spending vs. saving behaviour of ordinary people 118–21, 119; types/definitions of capitalism 106; youth unemployment 144–5 financial systems: common pool resources 192; debt-based/role of debt 28–32, 153–7; post-growth economy 179, 208; systemic weaknesses 32–7; and wellbeing 47 see also banking system; business-as-usual model; financial crisis; reform Findhorn community 128 finite limits of planet see limits (ecological) Fisher, Irving 156, 157 fishing rights 22 flourishing see capabilities for flourishing; limits; wellbeing flow states 127 Flynt, Larry 40 food 67 see also basic entitlements Ford, Henry 154 forestry/forests 22, 192 Forrester, Jay 11 fossil fuels 11, 20 see also oil Foucault, Michel 197 fracking 14, 15 Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) 92 France: GDP per capita 58, 75, 76; inequality 206; life-expectancy 74; mindfulness community 128; working hours 145 free market 106: financial crisis 35, 36, 37, 38, 39; ideological controversy/conflict 186–7, 188 freedom/autonomy: vs. common good 193–4; consumer 22, 68–9; language of goods 212; personal choices for improvement 216–18; wellbeing 49, 59, 62 see also individualism Friedman, Benjamin 176 Friedman, Milton 36, 156, 157 frugality 118–20, 127–9, 215–16 fun (more fun with less stuff) 129, 217 future visions 2, 158, 217–21; community banking 155–6; dilemma of growth 211; enterprise as service 140, 141–4, 147–8, 158; entrepreneur as visionary 112; financial crisis as opportunity 25; and growth 165–6; investment 22, 101–2, 140, 149–53, 158, 169, 208; money as social good 140, 153–7, 158; processes of change 185; role of the state 198, 199, 203; timescales for change 16–17; work as participation 140, 144–9, 148, 158 see also alternatives; post-growth macroeconomics; reform Gandhi, Mahatma 127 GDP see gross domestic product gene, selfish 134–5 Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) 54, 54 geographical community 122–3 Germany xxxi; Federal Ministry of Finance 224–5; inequality 206; relative income effect 58; trade balance 31; work as participation 146 Glass Steagal Act 35 Global Commodity Price Index (1992–2015) 13 global corporations 106–7 global economy 98: culture 70; decoupling 86–8, 91, 93–5, 95, 97, 98, 100; exponential expansion 20–1; inequality 4, 5–6; interconnectedness 91, 227; post-financial crisis slowing of growth 45 Global Research report (HSBC) 41 global warming see climate change Godley, Wynne 179 Goldman Sachs 37 good life 3, 6; moral dimension 63, 104; wellbeing 48, 50 goods see language of goods; material goods; symbolic role of goods Gordon, Robert 44 governance 22, 185–6; commons 190–2; crisis of commitment 192–5, 197; economic stability 34, 35; establishing limits 200–8, 206; growth 195–9; ideological controversy/conflict 186–9; moving towards change 197–200, 220–1; post-growth economy 181–3, 182; power of corporations 106; for prosperity 209; signals 130 government as household metaphor 30, 42 governmentality 197, 198 GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator) 54, 54 Graeber, David 28 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act 35 Great Depression 39–40 Greece: austerity xxxiii–xxxiv, xxxvii, 43; energy inputs 88; financial crisis 28, 30, 31, 77; life expectancy 74; schooling 76; relative income effect 58; youth unemployment 144 Green Economy initiative 41 green: growth xxxvii, 18, 85, 153, 166, 170; investment 41 Green New Deal, UNEP 40–1, 152, 188 greenhouse gas emissions 18, 85, 86, 91, 92; absolute decoupling 89–92, 90, 92, 98–101, 100; dilemma of growth 210–11; vs. employment intensity 148; future visions 142, 151, 201–2, 220; Kyoto Protocol 18, 90; reduction targets 19–20; relative decoupling 87, 88, 89, 93, 98–101, 100 see also climate change Greenspan, Alan 35 gross domestic product (GDP) per capita 3–5, 15, 54; climate change 18; decoupling 85, 93, 94; financial crisis 27, 28, 32; green growth 163–5; life expectancy 74, 75, 78; as measure of prosperity 3–4, 5, 53–5, 54, 60–1; post-financial crisis 43, 44; post-growth economy 207; schooling 76; wellbeing 55–61, 58 see also income growth xxxvii; capitalism 105; credit 36, 178–80; decoupling 85, 96–101; economic stability 21, 24, 67, 80, 210; financial crisis 37, 38; future visions 209, 223, 224; inequality 177; labour productivity 111; moving beyond 165, 166; novelty 112; ownership 105; post-financial crisis slowing 43–7, 45; prosperity as 3–7, 23, 66; role of the state 195–9; sustainable investment 166–70; wellbeing 59–60; as zero sum game 57 see also dilemma of growth; engine of growth; green growth; limits to growth; post-growth macroeconomy growth imperative hypothesis 37, 174, 175, 177–80, 183 habit formation, acquisition as 68 Hall, Peter 106, 188 Hamilton, William 134 Hansen, James 17 happiness see wellbeing/happiness Happiness (Layard) 55 Hardin, Garrett 190–1 Harvey, David 189, 192 Hayek, Friedrich 187, 189, 191 health: Baumol’s cost disease 171, 172; inequality 72–3, 205–6, 206; investment 150–1; and material abundance 67, 68; personal choices for improvement 217; response to economic hardship 80; role of the state 193 see also basic entitlements Heath, Edward 66, 82 hedonism 120, 137, 196; alternatives 125–6 Hirsch, Fred xxxii–xxxiii historical perspectives: absolute decoupling 86, 89–96, 90, 92, 94, 95; relative decoupling 86, 87–9, 89 Holdren, John 96 holistic solutions, post-growth economy 175 household finances: house purchases 28–9; spending vs. saving behaviour 118–20, 119 see also credit household metaphor, government as 30, 42 HSBC Global Research report 41 human capabilities see capabilities for flourishing human happiness see wellbeing/happiness human nature/psyche 3, 132–5, 138; acquisition 68; alternative hedonism 125; evolutionary map of human heart 136, 136; intrinsic values 131; meaning/purpose 49–50; novelty/innovation 116; selfishness vs. altruism 133–8; short-termism/living for today 194; spending vs. saving behaviour 34, 118–21, 119; symbolic role of goods 69 see also intrinsic values human rights see basic entitlements humanitarian perspectives: financial crisis 24; growth 79; inequality 5, 52, 53 see also intrinsic values hyperbolic discounting 194 hyperindividualism 226 see also individualism hyper-materialisation 140, 157 I Ching (Chinese Book of Changes) 7 Iceland: financial crisis 28; life expectancy 74, 75; relative income effect 56; response to economic hardship 79–80; schooling 76; sovereign money system 157 identity construction 52, 69, 115, 116, 212, 219 IEA (International Energy Agency) 14, 152 IMF (International Monetary Fund) 45, 156–7 immaterial goods 139–40 see also intrinsic values; meaning/purpose immortality, symbolic role of goods 69, 104, 115, 212–14 inclusive growth see inequality; smart growth income 3, 4, 5, 66, 124; basic entitlements 72–9, 74, 75, 76, 78; child mortality 74–5, 75; decoupling 96; economic stability 82; education 76; life expectancy 72, 73, 74, 77–9, 78; poor nations 67; relative income effect 55–61, 58, 71, 72; tax revenues 81 see also gross domestic product INDCs (intended nationally determined commitments) 19 India: decoupling 99; growth 99; life expectancy 74, 75; philosophy 127; pursuit of western lifestyles 70; savings 27; schooling 76 indicators of environmental quality 96 see also biodiversity; greenhouse gas emissions; pollution; resource use individualism 136, 226; progressive state 194–7, 199, 200, 203, 207 see also freedom/autonomy industrial development 12 see also technological advances inequality 22, 67; basic entitlements 72; child mortality 75, 75; credible alternatives 219, 224; deflationary forces 44; fatalism 186; financial crisis 24; global 4, 5–6, 99, 100; financial system weaknesses 32–3; post-growth economy 174, 176–8; role of the state 198, 205–7, 206; selfishness vs. altruism 137; symbolic role of goods 71; wellbeing 47, 104 see also poverty infant mortality rates 72, 75 inflation 26, 30, 110, 157, 167 infrastructure, civic 150–1 Inglehart, Ronald 58, 59 innovation see novelty/innovation; technological advances inputs 80–1 see also capital; labour productivity; resource use Inside Job documentary film 26 instant gratification 50, 61 instinctive acquisition 68 Institute for Fiscal Studies 81 Institute for Local Self-Reliance 204 institutional structures 130 see also economic structures; governance intended nationally determined commitments (INDCs) 19 intensity factor, technological 96, 97 see also technological advances intentional communities 127–9 interconnectedness, global 91, 227 interest payments/rates 39, 43, 110; financial crisis 29, 30, 33, 39; post-growth economy 178–80 see also credit; debt Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 18, 19, 201–2 International Energy Agency (IEA) 14, 152 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 45, 156–7 intrinsic values 126–31, 135–6, 212; role of the state 199, 200 see also belonging; community; meaning/purpose; simplicity/frugality investment 107–10, 108; ecological/sustainable 101, 152, 153, 166–70, 220; and innovation 112; loans 29; future visions 22, 101–2, 140, 149–53, 158, 169, 208, 220; and savings 108; social 155, 156, 189, 193, 208, 220–3 invisible hand metaphor 132, 133, 187 IPAT equation, relative and absolute decoupling 96 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 18, 19, 201–2 Ireland 28; inequality 206; life expectancy 74, 75; schooling 76; wellbeing 58 iron cage of consumerism see consumerism iron ore 94 James, Oliver 205 James, William 68 Japan: equality 206; financial crisis 27, 45; life expectancy 74, 76, 79; relative income effect 56, 58; resource use 93; response to economic hardship 79–80 Jefferson, Thomas 185 Jobs, Steve 210 Johnson, Boris 120–1 Kahneman, Daniel 60 Kasser, Tim 126 keeping up with the Joneses 115, 116, 117 see also relative income effect Kennedy, Robert 48, 53 Keynes, John Maynard/Keynesianism 23, 34, 120, 174, 181–3, 187–8; financial crisis 37–43; financial system reforms 157; part-time working 145; steady state economy 159, 162 King, Alexander 11 Krugman, Paul 39, 85, 86, 102 Kyoto Protocol (1992) 18, 90 labour: child 62, 154; costs 110; division of 158; elasticity of substitution 177, 178; intensity 109, 148, 208; mobility 123; production inputs 80, 109; structures of capitalism 107 labour productivity 80–1, 109–11; Baumol’s cost disease 170–2; and economic growth 111; future visions 220, 224; investment as commitment 150; need for investment 109; post-growth economy 175, 208; services as engine of growth 170; sustainable investment 166, 170; trade off with resource use 110; work-sharing 145, 146, 147, 148, 148, 149 Lahr, Christin 224–5 laissez-faire capitalism 187, 195, 196 see also free market Lakoff, George 30 language of goods 212; material footprint of 139–40; signalling of social status 71; and wellbeing 124 see also consumerism; material goods; symbolic role of goods Layard, Richard 55 leadership, political 199 see also governance Lebow, Victor 120 Lehman Brothers, bankruptcy 23, 25, 26, 118 leisure economy 204 liberal market economies 106, 107; financial crisis 27, 35–6 life expectancy: and income 72, 73, 74, 77–9, 78; inequality 206; response to economic hardship 80 see also basic entitlements life-satisfaction 73; inequality 205; relative income effect 55–61, 58 see also wellbeing/happiness limits, ecological 3, 4, 7, 11, 12, 20–2; climate change 17–20; decoupling 86; financial crisis 23–4; growth 21, 165, 210; post-growth economy 201–2, 226–7; role of the state 198, 200–2, 206–7; and social boundaries 141; wellbeing 62–63, 185 limits, flourishing within 61–5, 185; alternative hedonism 125–6; intrinsic values 127–31; moving towards 215, 218, 219, 221; paradox of materialism 121–23; prosperity 67–72, 113, 212; role of the state 201–2, 205; selfishness 131–8; shame 123–4; spending vs. saving behaviour 118–21, 119 see also sustainable prosperity limits to growth: confronting 7–8; exceeding 20–2; wellbeing 62–3 Limits to Growth report (Club of Rome) xxxii, xxxiii, 8, 11–16 ‘The Living Standard’ essay (Sen) 50, 123–4 living standards 82 see also prosperity Lloyd, William Forster 190 loans 154; community investment 155–6; financial system weaknesses 34 see also credit; debt London School of Economics 25 loneliness 123, 137 see also alienation long-term: investments 222; social good 219 long-term wellbeing vs. short-term pleasures 194, 197 longevity see life expectancy love 212 see also intrinsic values low-carbon transition 19, 220 LowGrow model for the Canadian economy 175 MacArthur Foundation 144 McCracken, Grant 115 Malthus, Thomas Robert 9–11, 132–3, 190 market economies: coordinated 27, 106; liberal 27, 35–6, 106, 107 market liberalism 106, 107; financial crisis 27, 35–6; wellbeing 47 marketing 140, 203–4 Marmot review, health inequality in the UK 72 Marx, Karl/Marxism 9, 189, 192, 225 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 11, 12, 15 material abundance see opulence material goods 68–9; identity 52; language of 139–40; and wellbeing 47, 48, 49, 51, 65, 126 see also symbolic role of goods material inputs see resource use materialism: and fear of death 69, 104, 115, 212–15; and intrinsic values 127–31; paradox of 121–3; price of 126; and religion 115; values 126, 135–6 see also consumerism mathematical models/simulations 132; austerity policies 181; countercyclical spending 181–2, 182; decoupling 84, 91, 96–101; inequality 176–8; post-growth economy 164; stock-flow consistent 179–80 Mawdsley, Emma 70 Mazzucato, Mariana 193, 220 MDG (Millennium Development Goals) 74–5 Meadows, Dennis and Donella 11, 12, 15, 16 meaning/purpose 2, 8, 22; beyond material goods 212–16; consumerism 69, 203, 215; intrinsic values 127–31; moving towards 218–20; wellbeing 49, 52, 60, 121–2; work 144, 146 see also intrinsic values means and ends 159 mental health: inequality 206; meaning/purpose 213 metaphors: government as household 30, 42; invisible hand 132, 133, 187 Middle East, energy inputs 88 Miliband, Ed 199 Mill, John Stuart 125, 159, 160, 174 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 74–5 mindfulness 128 Minsky, Hyman 34, 35, 40, 182, 208 MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) 11, 12, 15 mixed economies 106 mobility of labour, loneliness index 123 Monbiot, George 84, 85, 86, 91 money: creation 154, 157, 178–9; and prosperity 5; as social good 140, 153–7, 158 see also financial systems monopoly power, corporations 106–7 The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth (Friedman) 82, 176 moral dimensions, good life 63 see also intrinsic values moral hazards, separation of risk from reward 35 ‘more fun with less stuff’ 129, 217 mortality fears 69, 104, 115, 212–15 mortality rates, and income 74, 74–6, 75 mortgage loans 28–9, 35 multinational corporations 106–7 national debt see debt, public-sector nationalisation 191; financial crisis 38, 188 natural selection 132–3 see also struggle for existence nature, rights of 6–7 negative emissions 98–9 negative feedback loops 16–17 Netherlands 58, 62, 206, 207 neuroscientific perspectives: flourishing 68, 69; human behaviour 134 New Climate Economy report Better Growth, Better Climate 18 New Deal, USA 39 New Economics Foundation 175 nickel, commodity prices 13 9/11 terrorist attacks (2001) 121 Nordhaus, William 171, 172–3 North America 128, 155 see also Canada; United States Norway: advertising 204; inequality 206; investment as commitment 151–2; life expectancy 74; relative income effect 58; schooling 76 novelty/innovation 104, 108, 113; and anxiety 116–17, 124, 211; crisis of commitment 195; dilemma of growth 211; human psyche 135–6, 136, 137; investment 150, 166, 168; post-growth economy 226; role of the state 196, 197, 199; as service 140, 141–4, 158; symbolic role of goods 114–16, 213 see also technological advances Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (Thaler and Sunstein) 194–5 Nussbaum, Martha 64 nutrient loading, critical boundaries 17 nutrition 67 see also basic entitlements obesity 72, 78, 206 obsolescence, built in 113, 204, 220 oceans: acidification 17; common pool resources 192 Offer, Avner 57, 61, 71, 194, 195 oil prices 14, 21; decoupling 88; financial crisis 26; resource constraints 15 oligarchic capitalism 106, 107 opulence 50–1, 52, 67–72 original sin 9, 131 Ostrom, Elinor and Vincent 190, 191 output see efficiency; gross domestic product; productivity ownership: and expansion 105; private vs. public 9, 105, 191, 219, 223; new models 223–4; types/definitions of capitalism 105–7 Oxfam 141 paradoxes: materialism 121–3; thrift 120 Paris Agreement 19, 101, 201 participation in society 61, 114, 122, 129, 137; future visions 200, 205, 218, 219, 225; work as 140–9, 148, 157, 158 see also social inclusion part-time working 145, 146, 149, 175 Peccei, Aurelio 11 Perez, Carlota 112 performing arts, Baumol’s cost disease 171–2 personal choice 216–18 see also freedom/autonomy personal property 189, 191 Pickett, Kate 71, 205–6 Piketty, Thomas 33, 176, 177 planetary boundaries see limits (ecological) planning for change 17 pleasure 60–1 see also wellbeing/happiness Plum Village mindfulness community 128 Polanyi, Karl 198 policy see governance political leadership 199 see also governance Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts 41 pollution 12, 21, 53, 95–6, 143 polycentric governance 191, 192 Poor Laws 10 poor nations see poverty population increase 3, 12, 63, 96, 97, 190; Malthus on 9–11, 132–3 porn industry 40 Portugal 28, 58, 88, 206 positional competition 55–61, 58, 71, 72 see also social comparison positive feedback loops 16–17 post-growth capitalism 224 post-growth macroeconomics 159–60, 183–4, 221; credit 178–80; degrowth movement 161–3; economic stability 174–6; green growth 163–5; inequality 176–8; role of state 181–3, 182, 200–8, 206; services 170–4; sustainable investment 166–70 see also alternatives; future visions; reform poverty 4, 5–6, 216; basic entitlements 72; flourishing within limits 212; life expectancy 74, 74; need for new economic model 101; symbolic role of goods 70; wellbeing 48, 59–60, 61, 67 see also inequality; relative income effect power politics 200 predator–prey analogy 103–4, 117 private credit see credit private vs. public: common good 208; ownership 9, 105, 191, 219, 223; salaries 130 privatisation 191, 219 product lifetimes, obsolescence 113, 204, 220 production: inputs 80–1; ownership 191, 219, 223 productivity: investment 109, 167, 168, 169; post-growth economy 224; services as engine of growth 171, 172, 173; targets 147; trap 175 see also efficiency measures; labour productivity; resource productivity profits: definitions of capitalism 105; dilemma of growth 211; efficiency measures 87; investment 109; motive 104; post-growth economy 224; and wages 175–8 progress 2, 50–5, 54 see also novelty/innovation; technological advances progressive sector, Baumol’s cost disease 171 progressive state 185, 220–2; contested 186–9; countering consumerism 202–5; equality measures 205–7, 206; governance of the commons 190–2; governance as commitment device 192–5; governmentality of growth 195–7; limit-setting 201–2; moving towards 197–200; post-growth macroeconomics 207–8, 224; prosperity 209 prosocial behaviour 198 see also social contract prosperity 1–3, 22, 121; capabilities for flourishing 61–5; and growth 3–7, 23, 66, 80, 160; and income 3–4, 5, 66–7; limits of 67–72, 113, 212; materialistic vision 137; progress measures 50–5, 54; relative income effect 55–61, 58, 71, 72; social perspectives 2, 22, 48–9; state roles 209 see also capabilities for flourishing; post-growth macroeconomics; sustainable prosperity; wellbeing prudence, financial 120, 195, 221; financial crisis 33, 34, 35 public sector spending: austerity policies 189; countercyclical spending strategy 181–2, 182; welfare economy 169 public services/amenities: common pool resources 190–2, 198, 199; future visions 204, 218–20; investment 155–6, 204; ownership 223 see also private vs. public; service-based economies public transport 41, 129, 193, 217 purpose see meaning/purpose Putnam, Robert 122 psyche, human see human nature/psyche quality, environmental 12 see also pollution quality of life: enterprise as service 142; inequality 206; sustainable 128 quality to throughput ratios 113 quantitative easing 43 Queen Elizabeth II 25, 32, 34, 37 quiet revolution 127–31 Raworth, Kate 141 Reagan, Ronald 8 rebound phenomenon 111 recession 23–4, 28, 81, 161–3 see also financial crisis recreation/leisure industries 143 recycling 129 redistribution of wealth 52 see also inequality reforms 182–3, 222; economic structures 224; and financial crisis 103; financial systems 156–8, 180 see also alternatives; future visions; post-growth economy relative decoupling 84–5, 86; historical perspectives 87–9, 89; relationship with absolute decoupling 96–101, 111 relative income effect 55–61, 58, 71, 72 see also social comparison religious perspectives 9–10, 214–15; materialism as alternative to religion 115; original sin 9, 131; wellbeing 48, 49 see also existential fear of death renewable energy xxxv, 41, 168–169 repair/renovation 172, 220 resource constraints 3, 7, 8, 11–15, 47 resource productivity 110, 151, 168, 169, 220 resource use: conflicts 22; credible alternatives 101, 220; decoupling 84–9, 92–5, 94, 95; and economic output 142–4; investment 151, 153, 168, 169; trade off with labour costs 110 retail therapy 115 see also consumerism; shopping revenues, state 222–3 see also taxation revolution 186 see also social stability rights: environment/nature 6–7; human see basic entitlements risk, financial 24, 25, 33, 35 The Road to Serfdom (Hayek) 187 Robinson, Edward 132 Robinson, Joan 159 Rockström, Johan 17, 165 romantic movement 9–10 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 35, 39 Rousseau, Jean Jacques 9, 131 Russia 74, 76, 77–80, 78, 122 sacred canopy 214, 215 salaries: private vs. public sector 130, 171; and profits 175–8 Sandel, Michael 150, 164, 218 São Paulo, Clean City Law 204 Sardar, Zia 49, 50 Sarkozy, Nicolas xxxi, 53 savage state, romantic movement 9–10 savings 26–7, 28, 107–9, 108; investment 149; ratios 34, 118–20, 119 scale, efficiencies of 104 Scandinavia 27, 122, 204 scarcity, managing change 16–17 Schumpeter, Joseph 112 Schwartz, Shalom 135–6, 136 schooling see education The Science of Desire (Dichter) 114 secular stagnation 43–7, 45, 173 securitisation, mortgage loans 35 security: moving towards 219; and wellbeing 48, 61 self-development 204 self-expression see identity construction self-transcending behaviours see transcendence The Selfish Gene (Dawkins) 134–5 selfishness 133–8, 196 Sen, Amartya 50, 52, 61–2, 123–4 service concept/servicization 140–4, 147–8, 148, 158 service-based economies 219; engine of growth 170–4; substitution between labour and capital 178; sustainable investment 169–70 see also public services SFC (stock-flow consistent) economic models 179–80 shame 123–4 shared endeavours, post-growth economy 227 Sheldon, Solomon 214 shelter see basic entitlements shopping 115, 116, 130 see also consumerism short-termism/living for today 194, 197, 200 signals: sent out by society 130, 193, 198, 203, 207; social status 71 see also language of goods Simon, Julian 13 simplicity/simple life 118–20, 127–9, 215–16 simulations see mathematical models/simulations slow: capital 170; movement 128 smart growth 85, 163–5 see also green growth Smith, Adam 51, 106–7, 123, 132, 187 social assets 220 social boundaries (minimum standards) 141 see also basic entitlements social care 150–1 see also caring professions social comparison 115, 116, 117 see also relative income effect social contract 194, 198, 199, 200 social inclusion 48, 69–71, 114, 212 see also participation in society social investment 155, 156, 189, 193, 208, 220–3 social justice 198 see also inequality social logic of consumerism 114–16, 204 social stability 24, 26, 80, 145, 186, 196, 205 see also alienation social status see status social structures 80, 129, 130, 137, 196, 200, 203 social tolerance, and wellbeing 59, 60 social unrest see social stability social wage 40 social welfare: financial reforms 182–3; public sector spending 169 socialism 223 Sociobiology (Wilson) 134 soil integrity 220 Solon, quotation 47, 49, 71 Soper, Kate 125–6 Soros, George 36 Soskice, David 106 Soviet Union, former 74, 76, 77–80, 78, 122 Spain 28, 58, 144, 206 SPEAR organization, responsible investment 155 species loss/extinctions 17, 47, 62, 101 speculation 93, 99, 149, 150, 154, 158, 170; economic stability 180; financial crisis 26, 33, 35; short-term profiteering 150; spending: behaviour of ordinary people 34, 119, 120–1; countercyclical 181–2, 182, 188; economic stability 81; as way out of recession 41, 44, 119, 120–1; and work cycle 125 The Spirit Level (Wilkinson and Pickett) 71, 205–6 spiritual perspectives 117, 127, 128, 214 stability see economic stability; social stability stagflation 26 stagnant sector, Baumol’s cost disease 171 stagnation: economic stability 81–2; labour productivity 145; post-financial crisis 43–7, 45 see also recession state capitalism, types/definitions of capitalism 106 state revenues, from social investment 222–3 see also taxation state roles see governance status 207, 209, 211; and possessions 69, 71, 114, 115, 117 see also language of goods; symbolic role of goods Steady State Economics (Daly) xxxii steady state economies 82, 159, 160, 174, 180 see also post-growth macroeconomics Stern, Nicholas 17–18 stewardship: role of the state 200; sustainable investment 168 Stiglitz, Joseph 53 stock-flow consistent (SFC) economic models 179–80 Stockholm Resilience Centre 17, 201 stranded assets 167–8 see also ownership structures of capitalism see economic structures struggle for existence 8–11, 125, 132–3 Stuckler, David 43 stuff see language of goods; material goods; symbolic role of goods subjective wellbeing (SWB) 49, 58, 58–9, 71, 122, 129 see also wellbeing/happiness subprime lending 26 substitution, between labour and capital 177–178 suffering, struggle for existence 10 suicide 43, 52, 77 Sukdhev, Pavan 41 sulphur dioxide pollution 95–6 Summers, Larry 36 Sunstein, Cass 194 sustainability xxv–xxvi, 102, 104, 126; financial systems 154–5; innovation 226; investment 101, 152, 153, 166–70, 220; resource constraints 12; role of the state 198, 203, 207 see also sustainable prosperity Sustainable Development Strategy, UK 198 sustainable growth see green growth sustainable prosperity 210–12; creating credible alternatives 219–21; finding meaning beyond material commodities 212–16; implications for capitalism 222–5; personal choices for improvement 216–18; and utopianism 225–7 see also limits (flourishing within) SWB see subjective wellbeing; wellbeing/happiness Switzerland 11, 46, 157; citizen’s income 207; income relative to wellbeing 58; inequality 206; life expectancy 74, 75 symbolic role of goods 69, 70–1; existential fear of death 212–16; governance 203; innovation/novelty 114–16; material footprints 139–40; paradox of materialism 121–2 see also language of goods; material goods system dynamics model 11–12, 15 tar sands/oil shales 15 taxation: capital 177; income 81; inequality 206; post-growth economy 222 technological advances 12–13, 15; decoupling 85, 86, 87, 96–8, 100–3, 164–5; dilemma of growth 211; economic stability 80; population increase 10–11; role of state 193, 220 see also novelty/innovation Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre 8 terror management, and consumption 69, 104, 115, 212–15 terrorist attacks (9/11) 121 Thailand, Buddhist monasteries 128 Thaler, Richard 194 theatre, Baumol’s cost disease 171–2 theology see religious perspectives theory of evolution 132–3 thermodynamics, laws of 112, 164 Thich Nhat Hanh 128 thrift 118–20, 127–9, 215–16 throwaway society 113, 172, 204 timescales for change 16–17 tin, commodity prices 13 Today programme interview xxix, xxviii Totnes, transition movement 128–9 Towards a Green Economy report (UNEP) 152–3 Townsend, Peter 48, 61 trade balance 31 trading standards 204 tradition 135–6, 136, 226 ‘Tragedy of the commons’ (Hardin) 190–1 transcendence 214 see also altruism; meaning/purpose; spiritual perspectives transition movement, Totnes 128–9 Triodos Bank 156, 165 Trumpf (machine-tool makers) Germany 146 trust, loss of see alienation tungsten, commodity prices 13 Turkey 58, 88 Turner, Adair 157 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (2015) 19 UBS (Swiss bank) 46 Ubuntu, African philosophy 227 unemployment 77; consumer goods 215; degrowth movement 162; financial crisis 24, 40, 41, 43; Great Depression 39–40; and growth 38; labour productivity 80–1; post-growth economy 174, 175, 183, 208, 219; work as participation 144–6 United Kingdom: Green New Deal group 152; greenhouse gas emissions 92; labour productivity 173; resource inputs 93; Sustainable Development Strategy 198 United Nations: Development Programme 6; Environment Programme 18, 152–3; Green Economy initiative 41 United States: credit unions 155–6; debt 27, 31–32; decoupling 88; greenhouse gas emissions 90–1; subprime lending 26; Works Progress Administration 39 universal basic income 221 see also citizen’s income University of Massachusetts, Political Economy Research Institute 41 utilitarianism/utility, wellbeing 50, 52–3, 55, 60 utopianism 8, 38, 125, 179; post-growth economy 225–7 values, materialistic 126, 135–6 see also intrinsic values Veblen, Thorstein 115 Victor, Peter xxxviii, 146, 175, 177, 180 vision of progress see future visions; post-growth economy volatility, commodity prices 14, 21 wages: and profits 175–8; private vs. public sector 130, 171 walking, personal choices for improvement 217 water use 22 Wealth of Nations, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes (Smith) 123, 132 wealth redistribution 52 see also inequality Weber, Axel 46 welfare policies: financial reforms 182–3; public sector spending 169 welfare of livestock 220 wellbeing/happiness 47–50, 53, 121–2, 124; collective 209; consumer goods 4, 21, 22, 126; growth 6, 165, 211; intrinsic values 126, 129; investment 150; novelty/innovation 117; opulence 50–2, 67–72; personal choices for improvement 217; planetary boundaries 141; relative income effect 55–61, 58, 71, 72; simplicity 129; utilitarianism 50, 52–3, 55, 60 see also capabilities for flourishing western lifestyles 70, 210 White, William 46 Whybrow, Peter 68 Wilhelm, Richard 7 Wilkinson, Richard 71, 205–6 Williams, Tennessee 213 Wilson, Edward 134 wisdom traditions 48, 49, 63, 128, 213–14 work: as participation 140–9, 148, 157, 158; and spend cycle 125; sharing 145, 146, 149, 175 Works Progress Administration, USA 39 World Bank 160 World Values Survey 58 youth unemployment, financial crisis 144–5 zero sum game, growth as 57, 71

Fix Your Gut: The Definitive Guide to Digestive Disorders
by John Brisson
Published 12 Apr 2014

In people with healthy digestion, this level of stomach pH frequently occurs when we ingest our meals. Also, it did appear that at least short term use of betaine HCL does not create a negative feedback loop of decreased gastrin production leading to reduced production of stomach acid, marked by standard blood gastrin tests results during the study. In people with low stomach acid levels, the use of betaine HCL in the short term can help decrease stomach pH, reduce overgrowth, and improve protein digestion. It is still best (until we get more data on long term gastric acid negative feedback loop and betaine HCL use) to improve endogenous stomach acid production by supplementing with bitter herbs like gentian and ingesting enough pure salt (chloride is used to make HCL).

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Vagus nerve stimulation. Partially digested protein or amino acid supplements in the stomach. Hypercalcemia. Ingestion of coffee and alcohol. H. pylori colonization of the antrum (stomach body). Using medications including adrenergic stimulating drugs, cholinergic agents, and H2 antagonists / PPI’s (negative feedback loop, reduction in stomach acid and increased stomach pH leads to increased gastrin levels in some people). The hormone bombesin, epinephrine, and gastrin-releasing peptide. Gastrin-producing tumors (gastrinoma). Zollinger-Ellison Syndrome. Gastrin, when it reaches the parietal cells of the antrum, signals the stomach to secrete gastric acid and release histamine.

The Tyranny of Nostalgia: Half a Century of British Economic Decline
by Russell Jones
Published 15 Jan 2023

They fail because of imperfect information and the inevitability of unquantifiable uncertainty about the future. Monopolistic or oligopolistic power is a fact of life. Price signals get distorted. Externalities arise – both positive and negative. Discontinuities, herding, tipping points and price cascades are observable. Positive and negative feedback loops develop. Equally, the reality is that people are not always rational in the sense defined by Muth and Lucas. They are social animals driven by context. They might not be stupid, but they take time to learn from some of their mistakes. They do not instantaneously know what they want and where their best interests lie.

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In total, the gross resources committed to financial sector support, including the increase in contingent liabilities, ran to more than 60% of GDP, although the net cost to the taxpayer was ultimately to prove much smaller. There was also a recognition that there was a requirement for the UK’s financial sector oversight to be strengthened. In due course, this would mean both a new institutional architecture and the development of macroprudential instruments to mitigate the amplitude of the credit cycle and negative feedback loops between finance and real activity. Meanwhile, monetary policy was relaxed to an unprecedented extent (and in an increasingly unconventional manner) and significant temporary discretionary fiscal stimulus was applied around the bottom of the cycle. Both of these measures went some way towards stabilizing the perilous situation.

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After a maladroit beginning, Brown and his chancellor, Alistair Darling, ably supported by the Bank of England, did a laudable job, often having to improvise in ferociously difficult circumstances. In a number of ways – including bank recapitalization, international policy coordination, fiscal expansion and unconventional monetary policy – the UK helped to set the strategic agenda, playing an important role in reversing a pernicious global negative feedback loop and, in due course, encouraging recovery. Without the interventions instituted by Brown and his government, things would have probably been a good deal worse – not just at home, but more broadly too. In the end, however, the huge collateral damage done to the economy by the crisis, together with Brown’s broader prime ministerial shortcomings, meant that New Labour’s previous achievements counted for little in the electorate’s eyes.

The Age of Stagnation: Why Perpetual Growth Is Unattainable and the Global Economy Is in Peril
by Satyajit Das
Published 9 Feb 2016

If the rate of increase in borrowings decreased, then growth would slow and asset values, inflated by low rates and abundant credit, would fall. In turn, the inability to repay debt would trigger a financial crisis that would reduce the supply of credit, deepening the economic downturn. The process would repeat in a series of negative feedback loops. Complex instruments allowing risky loans to be repackaged into higher quality securities—a form of financial magic—compounded the problem. As the value of these securities fell sharply, investors who had borrowed against them were forced to sell, triggering ever larger losses. Risk turned out to have been egregiously underpriced; the potential problems of complex financial innovations had not been understood.

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It is not a problem of debt but of growth. Current levels of government debt are only sustainable if growth returns quickly to high levels. Given that recent economic growth has been debt-fueled, reduction in credit growth slows economic activity, making the borrowings unsustainable, feeding a deadly negative-feedback loop. As the global economy stagnated, weak countries were targeted by bond vigilantes, making it difficult to finance and forcing up their financing costs. Nations were forced to implement austerity programs, cutting spending and increasing taxes to stabilize public finances and reduce debt, trapping them in recessions or low growth, which only aggravated the problems.

Rewriting the Rules of the European Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity
by Joseph E. Stiglitz
Published 28 Jan 2020

Among the reasons for this migration was a lack of investor confidence that the banks within debtor countries could stay afloat or be successfully bailed out by their governments in the event of failure, an issue we address in Chapter 5. Bank credit is especially important for the small- and medium-sized enterprises that remain the backbone of the European economy, especially in the crisis countries. The crunch created a negative feedback loop. In reality, small-company productivity increases over time through learning-by-doing and building trust with clients. Revenues flow back into research and development and investment, but R&D expenditures are particularly vulnerable in a crisis. In short, austerity itself may have impeded exports because even as wages fell, productivity declined from what it otherwise would have been.

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Common deposit insurance We have noted that one key reason for the depth of the euro crisis is that money flees the banking system of a country that appears weak out of fear that the government will not have the resources to compensate insured depositors in the case of a bank failure. Only a system that replaces the current patchwork of national systems with a European deposit insurance scheme will prevent an outflow of funds from the banking systems of countries affected by negative shocks. Common deposit insurance will also help break the negative feedback loop between banks and sovereigns by reducing the incentives to pull money out of crisis-prone countries. Germany and some other countries worry that common deposit insurance will be an invitation to reckless bank behavior in irresponsible countries. These countries believe that if they undertake risks, the other country and its banks will benefit, thus leaving Germany and the more responsible countries to pick up the pieces.

Evidence-Based Technical Analysis: Applying the Scientific Method and Statistical Inference to Trading Signals
by David Aronson
Published 1 Nov 2006

This is illustrated in Figure 7.10. External Input System with No Feedback Output External Input System with Feedback Output Feedback Loop FIGURE 7.9 Feedback: output becomes input. External Input System Output Multiply by < 0 Negative Feedback Loop External Input System Output Multiply by > 0 Positive Feedback Loop FIGURE 7.10 Positive and negative feedback loops. 368 METHODOLOGICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, STATISTICAL FOUNDATIONS Negative feedback has the effect of dampening system behavior, driving the output back toward a level of equilibrium. Positive feedback has the opposite effect, amplifying a system’s behavior, thus driving its output further from equilibrium.

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Financial markets, like other self-organizing self-regulated systems, rely on a healthy balance between negative and positive feedback.81 Arbitrage provides negative feedback. Prices that are too high or too low Negative Feedback System Positive Feedback System FIGURE 7.11 Positive and negative feedback loops: dampening versus amplifying. Theories of Nonrandom Price Motion 369 trigger arbitrage trading that pushes prices back toward rational levels. Positive feedback occurs when investor decisions are dominated by imitative behavior rather than independent choice. In this regime, investors will hop aboard an initial price movement, buying after first signs of strength or selling after first signs of weakness, thus amplifying an initial small price movement into a large-scale trend.

Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History
by Thomas Rid
Published 27 Jun 2016

And that plan could be sent over a telegraph line as a message that would then be used to generate a copy of that machine at the other end. But cybernetics wouldn’t have to stop here. After all, life could be compared to machines now. Organically implemented feedback devices—humans, for instance—were just more complex machines, with negative feedback loops stabilizing body temperature instead of room temperature and blood pressure instead of tank pressure. So in principle, Wiener was convinced, that complex machine made up of molecular structures could be turned into an image, transferred, and reassembled elsewhere, just as simple machines could be disassembled and reassembled with the manual’s design blueprint: “It is conceptually possible for a human being to be sent over a telegraph line,” he wrote in God and Golem.

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But he felt that his posts were ignored until he made the long trip to the Bay Area to attend a WELL party. The very idea of separating online and offline didn’t square with the cybernetic minds of the Whole Earth pioneers. It was like isolating one of Ashby’s units of the homeostat, like cutting off Wiener’s negative feedback loops, like taking Bateson’s axe away from the man felling the tree—the antithesis of balance and whole systems. From the get-go, Brand wanted the Whole Earth network to be self-governing; he wanted the system to be a sociotechnical homeostat, a collective thinking machine and communal learning mechanism.

Competition Overdose: How Free Market Mythology Transformed Us From Citizen Kings to Market Servants
by Maurice E. Stucke and Ariel Ezrachi
Published 14 May 2020

If Tulane University, for example, advances its relative position, more applicants with better standardized test scores and grades will be attracted to the New Orleans university, and thereby further improve Tulane’s academic reputation.21 U.S. News, as part of its rankings, surveys college presidents, provosts, and deans of admissions about the quality of other universities’ academic programs. Rankings affect the administrators’ perceptions of the quality of peer institutions.22 Likewise, falling in rankings creates a negative feedback loop. If the university drops in rankings, it might attract fewer “star” students the following year, and the decline will continue. So we can readily see how a numerical ranking spurs competition. It is the bonfire that devours resources that schools devote to winning the competition. Many universities tie their strategic goals and evaluate their administrators’ performance based on these rankings.23 As University of Virginia’s former associate dean of admissions noted, “Schools are in competition, and they’re after ranking rights about who’s the most competitive school in the country to get into.”24 But if universities compete fiercely to move up (or maintain) their ranking, then we should all benefit, right?

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But they fear the collateral consequences of opting out. Suppose a selective college opts out of the Common App. It does not seek to fill up seats early through binding early decision. And it stops trolling for additional applicants to reject. How is it rewarded for its ethical behavior? Its ranking will likely drop. As its ranking drops, the negative feedback loop kicks in: The college will keep attracting fewer applicants to reject, the quality of their applicants will drop, and it will likely lose the favor of the wealthy alumni they count on to make major donations. Soon its credit ratings are dropping toward junk status.61 Staring into the abyss, the college administrators see the financial straits of other lower-ranked colleges, most of which are struggling to fill seats and dependent on tuition to finance operations—and they are likely to decide to rejoin the race, even knowing it’s a race to the bottom.

Braiding Sweetgrass
by Robin Wall Kimmerer

When growth is unbalanced, however, you can’t always tell the difference. Stable, balanced systems are typified by negative feedback loops, in which a change in one component incites an opposite change in another, so they balance each other out. When hunger causes increased eating, eating causes decreased hunger; satiety is possible. Negative feedback is a form of reciprocity, a coupling of forces that create balance and sustainability. Windigo stories sought to encourage negative feedback loops in the minds of listeners. Traditional upbringing was designed to strengthen self-discipline, to build resistance against the insidious germ of taking too much.

The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation Is the Key to an Abundant Future
by Jeff Booth
Published 14 Jan 2020

Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”67 The studies seem to indicate that once division and consolidation of one group against another take hold, it might be very difficult to stop, even when personal moral authority deems otherwise. In a world where abundance is possible, it is a flawed system that gives rise to extreme inequality. The output of that inequality will lead to a negative feedback loop of more extremism. That tribe or group mentality will in turn give rise to leaders who, instead of uniting us, divide us further using simple “us versus them” narratives. They become believable, potentially generationally believable, with severe consequences for us all. A butterfly effect where seemingly small things gradually cascade into very big things.

Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You
by Scott E. Page
Published 27 Nov 2018

It follows that our earlier counterintuitive result—that increasing the growth rate of foxes (or hares) has no effect on the equilibrium level of foxes (or hares)—still holds in the aggregate. Using Systems Dynamics Models to Guide Action Systems dynamics models can include both positive and negative feedback loops. Positive feedback loops can result in virtuous cycles, such as when increased trust between two countries leads to more trade, reduced military engagement, and, therefore, more trust. Positive feedback loops can also produce vicious cycles. A reduction in jobs in a region may result in less incentive for people to acquire skills, which may in turn induce firms to leave the region owing to a lack of qualified laborers, producing even less incentive for workers to acquire skills.

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The most useful systems dynamics reside in that boundary. Those models can reveal unintended effects and contribute to better policy actions. As we just saw, even the best-intended policies, such as the Australian deposit insurance policy, can produce undesirable outcomes. Systems dynamics models also show how negative feedback loops can limit the effect of interventions. Laws that mandate safety features on cars, such as antilock brakes or airbags, may cause people to drive more recklessly. Widening roads may cause more people to move to the suburbs, thus increasing congestion. Decreasing the nicotine in cigarettes may cause smokers to consume more cigarettes.

Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding From Anywhere
by Tsedal Neeley
Published 14 Oct 2021

The data we compiled suggests that divisive subgroup dynamics occurred only in teams that also suffered from power contests; in other words, power contests activate otherwise dormant faultlines. When strong negative emotions radiate tension across locations they can trigger a self-reinforcing cycle that fuels an “us versus them” dynamic. As this negative feedback loop spiraled within the software development teams we studied, resentments grew among team members. People started to withhold information from their distant colleagues. Group performance declined. In the worst-case scenario, teams disbanded. Perhaps most important, we discovered that team leaders were often unaware of the underlying issues that activated faultlines and caused dysfunctions in their team.

Life in the Universe: A Beginner's Guide
by Lewis Dartnell
Published 1 Mar 2007

The bounds of the HZ are not static but move as the star matures and grows steadily hotter. Over time, the ethereal ring of safety around the star sweeps outwards. For example, over the Earth’s history the Sun has brightened by about twenty-five per cent but the average global temperature has remained remarkably constant, thanks to negative feedback loops like the carbonate-silicate cycle. However, this negative feedback can only compensate for so much. At some point in the Earth’s future the ageing Sun will brighten to such a degree that the inner edge of the HZ will sweep right past our planet. The atmospheric thermostat will break down and the inexorable process of runaway greenhouse be set in motion.

The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire
by Neil Irwin
Published 4 Apr 2013

Borrowing from control theory, Zhou said in a 2009 speech, “In a complicated system, there are usually many feedback loops. . . . A positive feedback loop enlarges amplification, tends to create oscillation like boom and bust pro-cyclicality. . . . while a negative feedback loop can reduce amplification. . . . In economic and financial systems of recent years, we have too many positive feedback loops. Thus the system shows a strong pro-cyclicality. What we need to do is not to totally rebuild the system, but to add a few negative feedback loops.” As a young economic researcher in the 1980s, Zhou worked with some of China’s reformers, people committed to building a system with less corruption and more reliant on markets.

The Joys of Compounding: The Passionate Pursuit of Lifelong Learning, Revised and Updated
by Gautam Baid
Published 1 Jun 2020

XIV had been marketed exclusively to “professional investors” and it stayed true to the promise made on page 197 of its prospectus: “The long term expected value of your ETNs is zero. If you hold your ETNs as a long-term investment, it is likely you will lose all or a substantial portion of your investment.”14 The ensuing negative feedback loop of selling is believed to have exacerbated the market turmoil on that particular day. These kinds of devastating events can occur in the market at any time, and they will happen again without any warning. You should expect the unexpected in this business; expect the extreme. Don’t think in terms of boundaries that limit what the market might do.

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Harold, 241 Multi Commodity Exchange of India, 309 multidisciplinary thinking, 25 Munger, Charles, 69, 78, 96, 102, 269, 307, 325; attention span of, 30; Buffett and, 4–6, 167, 289; on business models, 214–215; on change of mind, 297–300; on competence, 59; on compounding, 28–29; on delayed gratification, 97–98, 110; on diversification, 244; on emerging markets, 301–302; on experience, 193; financial independence of, 81–82; on Fisher, 245; Gates on, 29; on Graham, 176; on human misjudgment, 133–138; on incentives, 145–147; on information, 287; on intelligence, 257, 295, 325; on inversion, 57–58; as investor, 107, 155, 245; on karma, 67; on knowledge, 335; on learning, 1, 6; on mental models, 11, 25–26; on military service, 94; on mistakes, 333, 352; on pari-mutuel systems, 248; on preparation, 193; on pricing power, 307; psychological checklist of, 133–138; on reading, 10, 359; on ROIC, 210; on simplicity, 72–73; in S&L crisis, 92–93; on specialists and generalists, 27; on surfing, 315; on technology, 289; on thinking, 158–159; on thumb-sucking, 300; on trust, 49; on vicarious learning, 349; on victimhood, 354; on volatility, 106–107; wealth of, 81–82; on wisdom, 19, 51, 128 Musk, Elon, on knowledge, 21 Nadella, Satya, 14 Napier, Russell, 183 National Company Law Tribunal, 201 Nebraska Furniture Mart, 99, 225 negative feedback loops, 264 negative working capital, 210 Neill, Humphrey, on bull markets, 250 Nepal, 119 net fixed assets, turnover ratio, 132 net present value, 290 net profit margin, 131 network effects: of Airbnb, 224; ROIC and, 223–224 news, 14 Newton, Isaac, 22 Newton’s first law, 315 niche, 224 Nifty Fifty, 171, 172, 237, 279 Nirma, 197–198 Niveshak, Safal, 188 North American Insurance, 60 North Star, 38 Novy-Marx, Robert, 179 numeric probabilities, 293 Occam’s razor, 70–71 octopus model, 224 Odean, Terrance, 348 Ogilvy, David, 13–14 Old School Value, 205 omission, 136; mistakes of, 302–304 One Small Step Can Change Your Life (Maurer), 111 ONE Thing, The (Keller & Papasan), 74 One Up on Wall Street (Lynch), 204 open-mindedness, 52–53 operating efficiency analysis, 132 operating goals, 125 Ophuls, William, 146 Oppong, Thomas, 34 opportunity cost: applicability of, 304–305; Buffett on, 302; mental model, 303 opportunity costs, 23; P&L and, 303; thinking and, 305–306 optimism, 272; market conditions and, 238 Oracle, 223 Origin of Species, The (Darwin), 296 Outliers (Gladwell), 41 outperformance, 36 Outsiders, The (Thorndike), 227 outside view, Kahneman on, 294–295 overdiversification, 244 overinfluence: of authority, 333–335; biases from, 136 overvaluation, 298 owner earnings, Buffett on, 162 Pabrai, Mohnish, 200, 370 Page Industries, 309 Papasan, Jay, 74 Parikh, Parag, 189 pari-mutuel systems: Munger on, 248; stock market as, 297 Parker, Adam, 315 Parrish, Shane, 12, 93, 96; on mental models, 25 par value, of stocks, 121–122 Pascal, Blaise, 299 passion, Buffett on, 36 Pasteur, Louis, 320 Patel, Prahaladbhai Shivrambhai, 197 pattern recognition, Buffett on, 307 Pebbles of Perception (Endersen), 50, 146 Peltzman effect, 146 penny stocks, 313 P/E ratio.

Thinking in Systems: A Primer
by Meadows. Donella and Diana Wright
Published 3 Dec 2008

Systems thinking by itself cannot bridge that gap, but it can lead us to the edge of what analysis can do and then point beyond—to what can and must be done by the human spirit. Appendix _____________ System Definitions: A Glossary Archetypes: Common system structures that produce characteristic patterns of behavior. Balancing feedback loop: A stabilizing, goal-seeking, regulating feedback loop, also know as a “negative feedback loop” because it opposes, or reverses, whatever direction of change is imposed on the system. Bounded rationality: The logic that leads to decisions or actions that make sense within one part of a system but are not reasonable within a broader context or when seen as a part of the wider system.

Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life Beyond Our Solar System
by Ray Jayawardhana
Published 3 Feb 2011

The solution to this “faint young Sun paradox” probably lies in higher concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane—both greenhouse gases—in the early Earth’s atmosphere, according to Kasting.3 As mentioned earlier, carbon is recycled between CO2 in the atmosphere and carbonate minerals in the oceans and the crust, thanks to plate tectonics. This long-term cycle has a negative feedback loop: in other words, at higher temperatures more of the carbon is tied up in carbonates (reducing greenhouse warming), whereas at lower temperatures more of it ends up in atmospheric CO2 (increasing greenhouse warming). The response time of this feedback loop is hundreds of thousands to millions of years.

Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity
by Charles L. Marohn, Jr.
Published 24 Sep 2019

In the latter, rising underlying land values create natural reinvestment opportunities. That mechanism doesn’t exist – there are no rising land values – in the slash-and-burn style of building, and thus there is no natural incentive for reinvestment. Once a home fails, it drags everything around it down, creating a negative feedback loop that won’t be arrested without massive outside intervention. Someone living in a declining neighborhood is going to receive all the signals that the decline will continue. In such a place, only a fool would invest their time or limited resources in fixing up their home. If it costs $5,000 to fix the leaking roof in a declining neighborhood, that is money that will never show up in improved resale value, so why do it?

Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything
by Becky Bond and Zack Exley
Published 9 Nov 2016

Campaign staff used data and technology to “microtarget” tiny slices of the electorate in the hopes that winning these segments would add up to a narrow majority. Once elected, these politicians promised to achieve incremental change via mundane policy tweaks. In return, they asked for only minimal participation from the people being organized. Small organizing drives a negative feedback loop where fewer and fewer people participate because the changes promised are too small to be worth anyone’s time, leading campaigners in turn to lower their expectations of participation. Even though campaigners and policy makers are the drivers of this process, they experience it as proof of the apathy of the people.

Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future
by Joi Ito and Jeff Howe
Published 6 Dec 2016

This in turn exacerbates the factors contributing to the absence of black men, ranging from an increase in gang violence, to unprotected sex, to suicide. A vicious cycle in which loss on a vast scale turns communities into the municipal equivalent of the walking wounded. It’s hard not to become desensitized to these negative feedback loops. The problems that beset our most troubled communities, from failing schools to teen pregnancy to poor nutrition, have stubbornly persisted through generations of well-intentioned reform movements and policy prescriptions. The headlines can bleed into one another until it’s easy to forget every victim, assailant, and bystander is someone’s brother or sister or child.

Life at the Speed of Light: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life
by J. Craig Venter
Published 16 Oct 2013

For example, they can produce feedback loops, either to generate positive feedback (using an activator), of the kind that turns a low sound in a microphone into a howl, or negative feedback (using a repressor), of the kind that is used in a thermostat to turn off a heater when a given temperature is reached. One can build switches,13 which respond to the conditions within a cell or around it, using a promoter and repressor, or oscillators, which follow a cyclical pattern (think of your body clock) that can be built in various ways, such as combining a negative-feedback loop with a delay, or counters, where an event triggers the production of a protein, which in turn activates another protein generator. In this way, the synthetic-biology student can construct a hierarchy, starting with parts and moving to devices and then systems. As a result of their work, we now have cellular circuits capable of pattern generation, noise shaping, edge detection,14 event counting, and synchronized oscillations in a growing population of cells.15 One team from Cornell has designed a cell-free method for producing complex biomolecules called, naturally enough, a BioFactory.

The 80/20 Principle: The Secret of Achieving More With Less
by Richard Koch
Published 15 Dec 1999

Feedback loops distort and disturb balance The 80/20 Principle is also consistent with, and can be explained by, reference to the feedback loops identified by chaos theory, whereby small initial influences can become greatly multiplied and produce highly unexpected results, which nevertheless can be explained in retrospect. In the absence of feedback loops, the natural distribution of phenomena would be 50/50—inputs of a given frequency would lead to commensurate results. It is only because of positive and negative feedback loops that causes do not have equal results. Yet it also seems to be true that powerful positive feedback loops only affect a small minority of the inputs. This helps to explain why those small minority of inputs can exert so much influence. We can see positive feedback loops operating in many areas, explaining how it is that we typically end up with 80/20 rather than 50/50 relationships between populations.

The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation
by Cathy O'Neil
Published 15 Mar 2022

See also fat shame author’s personal story, 21–25 author’s surgery choice/experience, 191–201 The Biggest Loser, 31–32, 72–73 children and, 34–35 ineffectiveness and potential dangers of, 26–27, 28–31, 34, 199 negative feedback loops, 25–26 the weight-loss industry, 27, 28–31, 34–35, 192, 193, 198 digital media. See social media; specific media platforms dignity and respect, 7, 90–91, 115–16, 206, 213, 215 distrust, 75–76, 208 masking controversies and, 153–57, 163 vaccine skepticism and resistance, 160–65 Douglass, Frederick, 169 drug addiction, 47–48.

The Behavioral Investor
by Daniel Crosby
Published 15 Feb 2018

Usually a negative loop will kick in sooner or later.” Eventually, the excesses of a feedback loop become its very undoing and the whole process begins again in reverse. Capital markets, driven by the same human actors that arbitrarily dehumanize their peers, are nothing more than a series of positive and negative feedback loops careening toward and away from the mythical notion of fair value. This circular relationship between cause and effect is known as reflexivity. George Soros, who has written most lucidly about this concept, states that two conditions must be present for reflexive markets to exist: 1. Thinking participants whose view of the world is partial and distorted 2.

99%: Mass Impoverishment and How We Can End It
by Mark Thomas
Published 7 Aug 2019

Here, the more people who adopt the new technology, the more people who come into contact with adopters and who, in effect, are converted by the adopters, adding to the total number of adopters. If this were the only dynamic at play, the number of adopters would grow exponentially and without limit. In the real world, there is a finite population and this introduces the second dynamic. This dynamic is a negative feedback loop towards the centre of the diagram, where the more adopters, the lower the percentage of the population remaining to adopt, and therefore the lower the percentage of those in contact with adopters actually available to be converted. In this very simple system with only two loops, it is possible to solve the equations explicitly and derive a formula for the penetration of the new product – the so-called S-curve, or logistic curve.

Open for Business Harnessing the Power of Platform Ecosystems
by Lauren Turner Claire , Laure Claire Reillier and Benoit Reillier
Published 14 Oct 2017

Early social networking sites SixDegrees and Friendster never found the elusive tipping point in their growth trajectory that would have allowed them to reach a critical mass. The customer experience was lacking and there was not enough for users to do, mainly because there were not enough users! Caught in a negative feedback loop, these platforms unravelled fairly quickly. Single homing vs multihoming Multihoming essentially means being connected to more than one network, usually for increased reliability, resilience or performance. In the context of platforms, it simply means participating in more than one platform.

Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up
by Philip N. Howard
Published 27 Apr 2015

As device networks spread, civic initiatives will always have more positive impacts in open societies. Authoritarian societies are structurally prevented from making use of people’s goodwill and altruism. In the bounded device networks of an authoritarian regime, crowd-sourcing initiatives are likely to create negative feedback loops and big data efforts are likely to generate misinformation about the actual conditions of public life. With this pernicious structural flaw, how much faith should we have that China’s rival information infrastructure will stay rivalrous? What will the government have to do to retain control of the internet of things that evolves within its borders?

The Internet Is Not the Answer
by Andrew Keen
Published 5 Jan 2015

But today, as the Internet expands to connect almost everyone and everything on the planet, it’s becoming self-evident that this is a false promise. The evangelists are presenting us with what in Silicon Valley is called a “reality distortion field”—a vision that is anything but truthful. Instead of a win-win, the Internet is, in fact, more akin to a negative feedback loop in which we network users are its victims rather than beneficiaries. Rather than the answer, the Internet is actually the central question about our connected twenty-first-century world. The more we use the contemporary digital network, the less economic value it is bringing to us. Rather than promoting economic fairness, it is a central reason for the growing gulf between rich and poor and the hollowing out of the middle class.

Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats
by Maya Goodfellow
Published 5 Nov 2019

Rarely is one category of people considered entirely welcome, and there aren’t always unambiguous distinctions between asylum seekers, refugees and migrants, especially not in the public debate, where the potential differences and similarities between different people and their experiences are muddied; the sheer complexity of it all is lost. Anti-asylum language feeds anti-immigrant narratives in an ongoing negative feedback loop, and regardless of their legal status, everyone who is seen as an ‘illegitimate’ outsider becomes a threat to the nation. Particular people are deemed undesirable, as the media and politicians conspire to give the impression that people who have come to live in the UK are undercutting wages, driving down conditions and diluting ‘British culture’.

Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think
by Alan Grafen; Mark Ridley
Published 1 Jan 2006

To be specific, nothing prevents us from seeking a generic characterization of ‘knowing’ (in terms of the storage of usable information) that would embrace both the way in which people know things (in their case, in the patterns of synaptic connectivity in brain tissue) and the ways in which the genes know things (presumably in the sequence of bases in their DNA). Similarly, we could frame an abstract characterization of ‘trying’ in terms of negative feedback loops, that is, a causal nexus consisting of repeated or continuous operations, a mechanism that is sensitive to the effects of those operations on some state of the environment, and an adjustment process that alters the operation on the next iteration in a particular direction, thereby increasing the chance that that aspect of the environment will be caused to be in a given state.

Oil Panic and the Global Crisis: Predictions and Myths
by Steven M. Gorelick
Published 9 Dec 2009

This group of scholars undertook an ambitious project of developing a computer model of the world – a virtual world system whose response to assumptions about resource availability and public policies about pollution and population controls could be explored. Their model recognized the compounding effect of exponential growth in population on the depletion of natural resources, but it attempted to counterbalance this effect by including potential negative feedback loops, such as decreased life expectancy caused by low nutritional levels or greater pollution. Covering the period from 1900 through 2100, their model was used to predict population, natural resources, industrial output, food consumption, and pollution (including soil erosion). Under a variety of scenarios, they predicted population overreaching available resources followed by rapid collapse in food availability, industrial output, and indeed human population itself.

Broken Markets: How High Frequency Trading and Predatory Practices on Wall Street Are Destroying Investor Confidence and Your Portfolio
by Sal Arnuk and Joseph Saluzzi
Published 21 May 2012

Along with Republican Senator Johnny Isaakson, I wrote to SEC Chair Mary Schapiro, asking her to follow up on her confirmation hearing pledge to look into reinstating the “uptick rule,” which had been removed in what former SEC Chair Chris Cox admitted had been a mistake. Short sellers play an important role in maintaining an orderly market. But there also are predatory bears. If not policed, they could have a devastating effect by creating a never-ending, negative feedback loop. The uptick rule helped to prevent that by prohibiting the shorting of a security unless the most recent trade was an increase in price. As it turned out, I lost the battle to reinstate the rule. The main force pushing back was a new group on Wall Street called high frequency traders (HFT).

Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing
by Josh Ryan-Collins , Toby Lloyd and Laurie Macfarlane
Published 28 Feb 2017

A substantial increase in the housing stock would likely put downward pressure on house prices, so a political tension has arisen between resolving the problems of supply and affordability on the one hand, and maintaining the asset wealth of homeowners on the other. Keohane and Broughton (2013) describe this as a negative feedback loop between homeownership and house prices, leading to a ‘low-supply equilibrium’ (see Figure 4.4). The evolution of taxation policy follows a similar trajectory: as homeowners become electorally dominant, elected governments since the 1960s have rolled back property taxes (see Box 4.8), and started to subsidise house purchase and homeownership.

Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do
by Jeremy Bailenson
Published 30 Jan 2018

While the origin of chronic pain can often be easily diagnosed, as in the case of lower back injury, its causes can also be complicated and mysterious, with no clear path of treatment. Either way, the grueling experience of dealing with constant pain carries over into every aspect of an individual’s life, affecting everything from sleep, work productivity, and personal relationships to the patient’s own mental health, and contributing to a negative feedback loop that can lead to severe depression.2 One way doctors have sought to treat those suffering from acute and chronic pain is to administer powerful prescription opioid painkillers like oxycodone and hydrocodone. Indeed, my doctor and I discussed this possibility before we decided to see first how I responded to physical therapy.

Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors
by Edward Niedermeyer
Published 14 Sep 2019

This is precisely the kind of dilemma that automakers anticipate and plan for years in advance, doing detailed market research to match production of each trim level and specification of a new vehicle as closely as possible with demand. Producing vehicles beyond what the market will bear is the most dreaded outcome in the business. It forces a company to lower prices, which in turn forces the company to cut its own costs, which can further reduce demand. The ensuing negative feedback loop has marked the end of the road for many automakers, including GM and Chrysler in 2008. The Model 3’s massive preorders had goaded Musk into the wildly ambitious manufacturing plans that created “production hell.” Now it seemed that the same preorders had led him to overestimate ongoing demand.

The Miracle Pill
by Peter Walker
Published 21 Jan 2021

‘Unless you’re a grant-awarding body, and I’ll tell you a very different story.’ The science is, he says, ‘very challenging – even the whole-body level isn’t really understood’. Mackenzie is perhaps being unduly modest, given the potential future benefits of his research. One strand examines how certain proteins might act as what he calls ‘a negative feedback loop’ to push people into type 2 diabetes. This is the lifestyle-related variant of diabetes, distinct from type 1, which is a lifelong autoimmune condition. Type 2 diabetes begins when the tissues in someone’s body stop responding properly to insulin, the hormone central to the maintenance of healthy blood sugar levels, putting them into what is called pre-diabetes.

Chaos Engineering: System Resiliency in Practice
by Casey Rosenthal and Nora Jones
Published 27 Apr 2020

You should aim as much as possible to only be testing one hypothesis at a time and be especially wary of mixing the testing of automated system reactions in conjunction with human reactions. Testing a single hypothesis does not imply that you need to avoid injecting simultaneous failures into your system. In the real world, interactions between co-occurring failures which individually may not have posed significant problems can lead to devastating outages. Uncovering negative feedback loops and disastrous bug combinations is one of the most rewarding outcomes of DiRT testing. As always, the usual safety controls apply: have a way to halt your test and be clear how you anticipate the system under test to behave. When you are stressing a system to see if it gracefully handles failure conditions it is wise to make sure the on-call engineer is aware of your test.

MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them
by Nouriel Roubini
Published 17 Oct 2022

Domestic and international conflict will displace cooperation. We are—as Bremmer put it—in a “geopolitical depression.” “Public calamity,” warned the British economist and statesman Edmund Burke in 1775, “is a mighty leveler.” In the dystopian scenario of this chapter, megathreats will produce negative feedback loops that reinforce each other. They will materialize over the next decade or two. No one knows exactly when. What experts can say with confidence evokes Burke on the eve of the American Revolution: megathreats will rock our world in sobering ways. Given the severe coming megathreats in the next two decades, how should individual and institutional investors protect at least their financial wealth?

The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality
by Richard Heinberg
Published 1 Jun 2011

See Bruce Jansson, The Sixteen-Trillion-Dollar Mistake (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). 16. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two forms of investment shows up in demand curves. Speculative demand increases as prices rise. Investment demand decreases as prices of the capital being invested in rise. The notion of market equilibrium is based on negative feedback loops, while speculation creates positive feedback loops. 17. Charles McKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841, various editions). 18. It is useful to distinguish among hedge, speculative, and ponzi finance. Hedge: investors have money to repay both capital and interest on the loan.

The new village green: living light, living local, living large
by Stephen Morris
Published 1 Sep 2007

Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards) 11. The size of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows 10. The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport network, population age structures) 9. The length of delays, relative to the rate of system changes 8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the effect they are trying to correct against 7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops 6. The structure of information flow (who does and does not have access to what kinds of information) 5. The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments, constraints) 4. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure 3.

Conscious Capitalism, With a New Preface by the Authors: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business
by John Mackey , Rajendra Sisodia and Bill George
Published 7 Jan 2014

If a business seeks only to maximize profits to ensure shareholder value and does not attend to the health of the entire system, short-term profits may indeed result, perhaps lasting many years, depending upon how well its competitor companies are managed. However, neglecting or abusing the other constituencies in the interdependent system will eventually create negative feedback loops that will end up harming the long-term interests of the investors and shareholders, resulting in sub-optimization of the entire system. Without consistent customer satisfaction, team member happiness and commitment, and community support, the short-term profits will prove to be unsustainable over the long term.

How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet (Information Policy)
by Benjamin Peters
Published 2 Jun 2016

These same philosopher-critics, according to information theorist Ilia Novik, “berated cybernetics with certain … indifference and even fatigue.” In the late 1940s and early 1950s, as cybernetics was sweeping the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Chile, and other countries with the enthralling possibilities of self-organizing human-machine ensembles and predictive negative feedback loops, “cybernetics” in the Soviet Union had, to crib Novik’s phrase, “emerged as a normal pseudo-science.”55 The anti-American Soviet campaign against cybernetics was only one among a range of operations that were meant to repress the Soviet knowledge base, including but not limited to Stalinist science.

Unfinished Business
by Tamim Bayoumi

The interaction between concerns about banks and government finances generated severe strains in Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, and Ireland. Indeed, at one point the crisis threatened the existence of the currency union itself, before a more aggressive stance to preserving the union by the European Central Bank diffused growing negative feedback loops. * * * The Way We Were The pre-crisis macroeconomic orthodoxy had a precise and relatively narrow view of policy challenges. It focused on business cycle fluctuations around a slowly evolving path for underlying output (underlying output was determined by technology and was thus not part of the analysis).

The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth
by Tim Flannery
Published 10 Jan 2001

Indeed, a slump off the Carolina coast 15,000 years ago is thought to have released enough methane to increase atmospheric concentrations by 4 per cent.25 It’s sobering to ponder that there could be an unstable clathrate time bomb off a beach near you! Of the three scenarios presented, the release of the clathrates is the least likely to occur this century. Only a massive warming event, one suspects, could trigger it. The shutting down of the Gulf Stream is unique among the possibilities canvassed here in that it is a powerful negative feedback loop which for the north Atlantic rim countries at least—and perhaps for the planet as a whole—will temporarily and dramatically reverse the warming trend. Thus, from a Gaian perspective, disrupting the Gulf Stream is akin to cutting off a gangrenous limb before it corrupts the entire body. The other two scenarios, in contrast, are positive feedback loops, one of which is the most powerful in Earth’s history.

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
by David Epstein
Published 1 Mar 2019

(In economic bubbles, consumers buy stocks or property with the idea that the price will increase; that buying causes the price to increase, which leads to more buying. When ice caps melt, they reflect less sunlight back to space, which warms the planet, causing more ice to melt.) Or perhaps you would put the act of sweating and actions of the Federal Reserve together as negative-feedback loops. (Sweating cools the body so that more sweating is no longer required. The Fed lowers interest rates to spur the economy; if the economy grows too quickly, the Fed raises rates to slow down the activity it launched.) The way gas prices lead to an increase in grocery prices and the steps needed for a message to traverse neurons in your brain are both examples of causal chains, where one event leads to another, which leads to another, in linear order.

How I Built This: The Unexpected Paths to Success From the World's Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs
by Guy Raz
Published 14 Sep 2020

“So a lot of the stuff that you used to talk about, you don’t have time for, because you’ve got to work on this little, growing baby company.” Then what happens, when things get difficult at the office, is that founder-friends don’t get the support or the patience they need from each other because the friendship muscle has atrophied. It’s the worst kind of negative feedback loop. Andy and Brian’s friendship made conversations about conflicting business roles and differences of professional opinion very uncomfortable, and so the issues festered. Those unresolved issues increased the amount of attention each founder had to pay to the business—the energy for which they inevitably took from their friendship, sending their relationship into a downward spiral.

Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe
by Paul Sen
Published 16 Mar 2021

That means that when one molecule of X reacts with another molecule of X, it creates a third molecule of X. In other words, X generates more copies of itself as long as there is a ready supply of free energy and the raw materials from which X is made. Y, on the other hand, acts to create a negative feedback loop that can reduce the production of X. This means that if the levels of X exceed a certain amount, a molecule of Y destroys a molecule of X, thus stopping the production of more X. Y, if you like, acts as a thermostat that regulates the production of X. In unpublished notes, Turing explained how this system might create patterns.

Gene Eating: The Science of Obesity and the Truth About Dieting
by Giles Yeo
Published 3 Jun 2019

Perhaps because of its genesis, emerging as it did from Doug Coleman’s concept of a missing ‘satiety factor’ in the obese mice, ‘leptin’ actually came from the Greek word ‘leptos’, meaning thin. At the time, most people in the field, myself included, just thought that leptin functioned in a classical ‘negative feedback loop’, meaning if you ate too much you would get fat, which would raise leptin levels, and leptin would then signal to your brain to get you to eat less; this would in turn lower fat levels and therefore leptin, making you eat more again, and so on and so forth. The fact that when you gave leptin to the kids with no leptin and they ended up feeling less hungry and losing lots of weight appeared to support this hypothesis.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing
by Burton G. Malkiel
Published 10 Jan 2011

Prices decline and individuals find not only that their wealth has declined but that in many cases their mortgage indebtedness exceeds the value of their houses. Loans then go sour, and consumers reduce their spending. Overly leveraged financial institutions begin a deleveraging process. The attendant tightening of credit weakens economic activity further, and the outcome of the negative feedback loop is a severe recession. Credit boom bubbles are the ones that pose the greatest danger to real economic activity. Does This Mean That Markets Are Inefficient? This chapter’s review of the Internet and housing bubbles seems inconsistent with the view that our stock and real estate markets are rational and efficient.

Nerds on Wall Street: Math, Machines and Wired Markets
by David J. Leinweber
Published 31 Dec 2008

Both have a systems analysis flavor, and both are from MIT graduates, who have the predilection and training to think this way. The two ideas discussed here, fractional home ownership and a new American bank initiative, each have a great systems analysis soul— removing unnecessary complexity and negative feedback loops and creating positive feedback via incentive structures to make them work. One of the best examples of a structural approach to societal problems occurred in Germany in the 1970s. Some German rivers had become so polluted with factory waste that they would catch fire. Some were paved over and declared industrial sewers.

Little Failure: A Memoir
by Gary Shteyngart
Published 7 Jan 2014

You could spit at me or bean me with your spit-covered Carvel ice-cream stick or not invite me to your Great Neck roller rink Bat Mitzvah. But you could never say I was stupid. And now I am. Stupid enough to almost fail out of Spanish class. Stupid enough to stare at a page of geometry for half a day and come away with nothing but the conclusion that triangles have three sides. And if I could understand what a negative feedback loop is in biology class, I could maybe understand that the more I feel stupid, the stupider I become. The anxiety grows and reinforces itself. The tests—and they are daily—grow more difficult, not less. And with each week, with each test, I am getting closer to it. It is the report card. It tells you what your station in life will be.

Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (Fully Revised and Updated)
by Charles Wheelan
Published 18 Apr 2010

Proponents of the stimulus, such as Obama’s chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, make the case that the $787 billion stimulus raised real GDP growth by 2 to 3 percentage points and saved a million jobs.17 As far as I can tell, they’re both right. I was a congressional candidate at the time, so my views are a matter of public record (for the small number of people who paid attention to them). The economy was caught in dangerous negative feedback loops—foreclosures were causing banking problems which were causing layoffs which were causing foreclosures, and so on. I was fond of saying, “A bad stimulus is better than no stimulus, and a bad stimulus is what we got.” The government needed to do something to break the cycle (in part because monetary policy was not working, as will be explained in a moment).

Humankind: A Hopeful History
by Rutger Bregman
Published 1 Jun 2020

Modern psychologists call it non-complementary behaviour. Most of the time, as I mentioned earlier, we humans mirror each other. Someone gives you a compliment, you’re quick to return the favour. Somebody says something unpleasant, and you feel the urge to make a snide comeback. In earlier chapters we saw how powerful these positive and negative feedback loops can become in schools and companies and democracies. When you’re treated with kindness, it’s easy to do the right thing. Easy, but not enough. To quote Jesus again, ‘If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?’

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
by Matthew Walker
Published 2 Oct 2017

The irony that employees miss is that when you are not getting enough sleep, you work less productively and thus need to work longer to accomplish a goal. This means you often must work longer and later into the evening, arrive home later, go to bed later, and need to wake up earlier, creating a negative feedback loop. Why try to boil a pot of water on medium heat when you could do so in half the time on high? People often tell me that they do not have enough time to sleep because they have so much work to do. Without wanting to be combative in any way whatsoever, I respond by informing them that perhaps the reason they still have so much to do at the end of the day is precisely because they do not get enough sleep at night.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing (Eleventh Edition)
by Burton G. Malkiel
Published 5 Jan 2015

Prices decline and individuals find not only that their wealth has declined but that in many cases their mortgage indebtedness exceeds the value of their houses. Loans then go sour, and consumers reduce their spending. Overly leveraged financial institutions begin a deleveraging process. The attendant tightening of credit weakens economic activity further, and the outcome of the negative feedback loop is a severe recession. Credit boom bubbles are the ones that pose the greatest danger to real economic activity. Does This Mean That Markets Are Inefficient? This chapter’s review of the Internet and housing bubbles seems inconsistent with the view that our stock and real estate markets are rational and efficient.

The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend
by Rob Copeland
Published 7 Nov 2023

As did many large companies, Bridgewater sent out periodic employee surveys, and Sweet let it rip: I think the tools instill a viciousness sometimes as people meet their metrics for Issue Logs or “balance” their Dot softness/toughness gauge by piling on people who make a visible mistake.… I’ve seen MPTs where people are criticized for not dotting negatively enough and in my opinion it only exacerbates the problem. There are a number of people in BW that have needed to receive psychiatric care, including myself, because the tools created a negative feedback loop that reinforced existing [insecurities] and fostered feelings of worthlessness.… There are many I’ve talked to that continue to suffer quietly through depression and anxiety. Sweet didn’t receive a response, but he did receive more work. The weeks slipped by, and his depressive symptoms began to creep back.

Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
by Michael Shermer
Published 1 Jan 1997

Witch after witch is burned and abuser after abuser is jailed, until the system reaches criticality and finally collapses under changing social conditions and pressures (see figure 10). The "Phantom Gasser of Mattoon" is another classic example. The phenomenon self-organized, reached criticality, switched from a positive to a negative feedback loop, and collapsed— all in the span of two weeks. Data supporting this model exist. For example, note in figure 11 the rise and fall of accusations of witchcraft brought before the ecclesiastical courts in England from 1560 to 1620, and trace through the various parts of figure 12 the pattern of accusations in the witch craze that began in 1645 in Manningtree, England.

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers
by Lawrence G. Mcdonald and Patrick Robinson
Published 21 Jul 2009

They in turn stopped ordering from China in those same vast quantities. And that put a brake on the amount of Treasuries China could buy from the U.S. government, which slowed down America’s ability to borrow big sums of money from Chinese banks. Everyone was now screwing up everyone else. That’s known in financial circles as the negative feedback loop, the precise opposite of the first one, the positive feedback loop. For the record, for anyone who might be very slightly confused: the first one, the positive loop, is great for all concerned, although not guaranteed to last. The second one, the negative loop, is a bitch. I describe it so because once the loop reverses direction, it’s extremely difficult to slow down.

Last Man Standing: The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase
by Duff McDonald
Published 5 Oct 2009

It was still suffering for past mistakes—overextending in leveraged loans and allowing loan underwriting standards to deteriorate significantly—and was also paying the price for being a bank at a time when banking was not a good business to be in. “You can’t outrun the economy,” Dimon’s former colleague Bob Willumstad observed. “It’s the nature of the business.” And the economy was running pretty fast. The negative feedback loop of global de-leveraging continued unabated, with a savage interplay between the financial markets and the real economy. Loan defaults spiked across the board, from large companies to individual credit card holders. Despite JPMorgan Chase’s relative balance sheet strength, investors couldn’t help being a little concerned about skeletons lurking in its closet.

Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back
by Douglas Rushkoff
Published 1 Jun 2009

When public schools get worse, too many community members think they need to go it alone, and spend their time and energy trying to earn more money to pay for private school when they could be joining with other parents to make the public system better—from the bottom up. Decisions made under the fearful, self-interested presumption of corporatism reinforce one another in a negative feedback loop. Likewise, each tiny choice we make to take back our world leads to a long chain of positive effects. Start a babysitting club and you form closer relationships with neighbors, you get more quality time with your spouse, you learn about your neighbors’ kids and give your own kids more role models.

The Story of Stuff: The Impact of Overconsumption on the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-And How We Can Make It Better
by Annie Leonard
Published 22 Feb 2011

We can even buy computer games that simulate sports with live opponents. This is commodification at work: the process of turning things that were once public amenities, neighborly activities, or the role of friends into privately purchasable Stuff or services—i.e., commodities. Systems thinkers often talk about negative feedback loops—problems that cause an effect that adds to the original problem. For instance, when global temperatures rise, ice caps melt, decreasing the planet’s ability to reflect sunlight off that bright snow, so global temperatures rise further. The same thing is happening with our melting communities.

How to Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic
by Michael Geier
Published 6 Jan 2011

The bias network of R5, D1, R6 and R7 keeps the transistors turned on just slightly, so there’s no dead spot to cause crossover distortion when the input signal’s waveform is less than ± 0.6 volts or so. C4 couples the signal to both transistors. Their outputs drive Q4 and Q5, which provide enough current gain to move a speaker cone. In a real amplifier, a little bit of the output would be fed back through a few resistors and capacitors to the input stage in a negative feedback loop, to correct for distortion introduced by the imperfect nature of the amplifying elements (transistors) by reintroducing the same distortion upside down, cancelling it out. We’re omitting those parts here to keep things clear. Sounds Like a Problem Let’s look at how malfunctions in each stage would affect the amplifier’s behavior.

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
Published 20 Mar 2012

THE DIFFUSION OF PROSPERITY How some parts of the world took different paths to prosperity from that of Britain 11. THE VIRTUOUS CIRCLE How institutions that encourage prosperity create positive feedback loops that prevent the efforts by elites to undermine them 12. THE VICIOUS CIRCLE How institutions that create poverty generate negative feedback loops and endure 13. WHY NATIONS FAIL TODAY Institutions, institutions, institutions 14. BREAKING THE MOLD How a few countries changed their economic trajectory by changing their institutions 15. UNDERSTANDING PROSPERITY AND POVERTY How the world could have been different and how understanding this can explain why most attempts to combat poverty have failed ACKNOWLEDGMENTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY AND SOURCES REFERENCES PREFACE THIS BOOK IS about the huge differences in incomes and standards of living that separate the rich countries of the world, such as the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, from the poor, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, and South Asia.

Exercised: The Science of Physical Activity, Rest and Health
by Daniel Lieberman
Published 2 Sep 2020

Second, if you are struggling to exercise, it is useful to remember how and why exercising takes time to become enjoyable or less unpleasant. Because we never evolved to be inactive and out of shape, the adaptations that make physical activity feel rewarding and become a habit develop only after the several months of effort it takes to improve fitness. Slowly and gradually, exercise switches from being a negative feedback loop in which discomfort and lack of reward inhibit us from exercising again to being a positive feedback loop in which exercise becomes satisfying. So, yes, exercise can become more rewarding and fun. But let’s not deceive ourselves or others. No matter what we do to make exercise more enjoyable, the prospect of exercising usually seems less desirable and less comfortable than staying put.

The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions
by Greta Thunberg
Published 14 Feb 2023

The relative inability of plantations to sequester carbon is another negative aspect, as is the fact that plantations are much more vulnerable to fires and disease. The fact that biomass is considered renewable has sparked large-scale exploitation of this energy source, which is accelerating deforestation and biodiversity loss. This is a human-made negative feedback loop that is currently spiralling out of control in many places. For biomass to be sustainable and renewable, we need to significantly downscale the entire practice. Burning wood for energy releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than burning coal does, and the fact that these emissions are excluded from our national statistics – and that they are considered renewable – has created a potentially disastrous loophole. / Geothermal energy Geothermal energy comes from inside the Earth’s crust.

The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI
by Ray Kurzweil
Published 25 Jun 2024

From 1990 to 2013 there was an astonishing 95 percent drop in East Asia’s extreme poverty, in a total population that grew from 1.6 billion to 2 billion during that period.[117] The only region where extreme poverty increased during much of that same period was Europe and Central Asia, where the economic chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union has taken decades to repair.[118] Notably, this was primarily for political reasons rather than narrowly economic or technological ones. The collapse of the authoritarian Soviet government created a power vacuum that allowed enormous corruption. Especially in the poorer Central Asian post-Soviet republics, this generated negative feedback loops that discouraged investment and suppressed prosperity. Since the end of the Cold War, though, the international community has been able to devote much more of its attention to fighting serious poverty in the most deprived regions of the earth. Right after the fall of the Soviet Union, many developed nations cut their foreign aid budgets and gave less priority to international development.[119] This occurred because during the Cold War, development was largely seen through a strategic lens as Western democracies and communist Eastern bloc nations wrangled for influence in the developing world.

Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought
by Andrew W. Lo
Published 3 Apr 2017

How many financial calamities could be prevented, or their impact reduced, if there was an official clearinghouse for crisis information beyond Bloomberg terminals and Twitter? How many incorrect theories, like the myth of SEC Rule 15c3–1’s role in the financial crisis, could be nipped in the bud? How else will we be able to create the essential negative feedback loops to stop possible crises before they start? If the financial system is to survive and flourish over the long run, it must adapt to its new environment. We’ll need to describe chains of financial causation accurately and in a testable manner, using the scientific method, not political discourse.

Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
by Nicholas A. Christakis
Published 26 Mar 2019

If religious beliefs encourage fertility, maybe we will all be more religious in the future.81 These ideas have been difficult for me to accept because, unfortunately, this also means that particular ways of living may create advantages for some but not all members of our species across time. Certain populations may gradually acquire certain advantages, and there may be positive or negative feedback loops between genetics and culture. Maybe some people really are better able to cope with modernity than others. The idea that the way we choose to shape our world modifies which of our descendants survive is as troubling to me as it is amazing. From a scientific perspective, however, work on gene-culture coevolution offers the exciting potential of a unifying framework that might bring social and biological analyses of human nature under one roof.

The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease
by Lanius, Ruth A.; Vermetten, Eric; Pain, Clare
Published 11 Jan 2011

Another recent G×E finding potentially mediated by altered HPA axis reactivity is the interaction of four SNPs in FKBP5 with severity of childhood abuse as a prediction of the level of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in adults [35]. The expression of FKBP5 is induced by glucorticoids and is part of a GR-mediated negative feedback loop impacting HPA axis activity. Some of the SNPs associated with PTSD severity in those with a history of childhood abuse in this study had previously been linked with increased FKBP5 expression [36]. Increased FKBP5 expression would theoretically predict decreased sensitivity to glucocorticoid-mediated negative feedback.

Debunking Economics - Revised, Expanded and Integrated Edition: The Naked Emperor Dethroned?
by Steve Keen
Published 21 Sep 2011

It would still be possible – indeed necessary – to buy a property for more than ten times its annual rental. But then the excess of the price over the loan would be genuinely the savings of the buyer, and an increase in the price of a house would mean a fall in leverage, rather than an increase in leverage as now. There would be a negative feedback loop between house prices and leverage. That hopefully would stop house price bubbles developing in the first place, and take dwellings out of the realm of speculation back into the realm of housing, where they belong. Conclusion As the above ‘bubble on a whirlpool of speculation’ quote from Keynes indicates, this is not the first time that the conventional theory of finance has been attacked.

Voyage
by Stephen Baxter
Published 23 May 2011

It took me a while to figure this stuff out. Look: suppose the temperature of your core rises. And suppose that the core is designed so that when it heats up, the reactivity drops — that is, the reaction rate automatically falls. That’s what’s meant by a ‘negative temperature coefficient.’ In that case you have a negative feedback loop, and your reaction falls off, and the temperature is damped down.” “Okay. It’s kind of self-correcting.” “That’s right; the whole thing is stable. That’s how they design civilian reactors. But in the case of NERVA, that coefficient was positive, at least for some of the temperature range.

Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease
by Gary Taubes
Published 25 Sep 2007

At this point, Pennington said, “the size of the adipose deposits, though larger than formerly, remains constant: the weight curve strikes a plateau, and the food intake is, again, balanced to the caloric output.” By Pennington’s logic obesity is simply the body’s way of compensating for a defect in the storage and metabolism of fat. The compensation, he said, occurs homeostatically, without any conscious intervention. It works by a negative feedback loop. By expanding with fat, the adipose tissue “provides for a more effective release of fat for the energy needs of the body.” Meanwhile, the conditions at the cellular level remain constant; the cells and tissues continue to function normally, and they do so even if we have to become obese to make this happen.

How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS
by David France
Published 29 Nov 2016

“You can’t treat a drug that has shown in animal testing to be safe, that has been shown in vitro to block the virus, has been shown in a preliminary pilot study to be reasonable—you can’t treat that drug the same way that you treat a drug of somebody who gets it off a boat somewhere in outer Transylvania!” Bahlman changed the subject slightly, pivoting to prophylaxes. Like Callen and Sonnabend, he was deeply engaged in the campaign to prevent the major opportunistic infections. “What do you think’s going to happen with DHPG?” he asked Fauci. The anti-blindness drug was lost in a negative feedback loop. Despite intense pressure from activists, the FDA refused to give it full release without a clinical trial, something Fauci’s NIAID had refused to undertake, forcing people to rely on anecdotes from off-label users to evaluate the drug. Fauci’s voice tightened. He stabbed the table with a finger.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
by Shoshana Zuboff
Published 15 Jan 2019

Unlike television, however, social media entails active self-presentation characterized by “profile inflation,” in which biographical information, photos, and updates are crafted to appear ever more marvelous in anticipation of the stakes for popularity, self-worth, and happiness.49 Profile inflation triggers more negative self-evaluation among individuals as people compare themselves to others, which then leads to more profile inflation, especially among larger networks that include more “distant friends.” As one study concluded, “Expanding one’s social network by adding a number of distant friends through Facebook may be detrimental by stimulating negative emotions for users.”50 One consequence of the new density of social comparison triggers and their negative feedback loops is a psychological condition known as FOMO (“fear of missing out”). It is a form of social anxiety defined as “the uneasy and sometimes all-consuming feeling that… your peers are doing, in the know about, or in possession of more or something better than you.”51 It’s a young person’s affliction that is associated with negative mood and low levels of life satisfaction.

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
by Robert M. Sapolsky
Published 1 May 2017

Now consider the next circuit. Neuron A stimulates neuron B, as usual. In addition, it also stimulates neuron C. This is routine, with neuron A splitting its axonal projections between the two target cells, exciting both. And what does neuron C do? It sends an inhibitory projection back onto neuron A, forming a negative feedback loop. Back to the brain loving contrasts, energetically screaming its head off when it has something to say, and energetically being silent otherwise. This is a more macro level of the same. Neuron A fires off a series of action potentials. What better way to energetically communicate that it’s all over than to become majorly silent, thanks to the feedback loop?

Food Allergy: Adverse Reactions to Foods and Food Additives
by Dean D. Metcalfe
Published 15 Dec 2008

Very recently, two exiting studies showed that mast cell-derived proteases cleave endogenous (endothelin-1, induced by bacterial infection) and exogenous (snake and honeybee venoms) toxins and subsequently limit pathology [87,88]. Moreover, mast cell proteases mediate cleavage of allergens. This might be an important negative feedback loop terminating or weakening allergic inflammation [89]. The main mast cell-produced metabolites of arachidonic acid (and their prominent function) are PGD2 (smooth muscle contraction, chemoattractant for eosinophils, and Th2 cells), LTC4 (increase of vascular permeability, mucus production, and smooth muscle contraction), and LTB4 (chemoattractant for neutrophils, eosinophils, and CD8 T-cells) [90].