Our Mutually Reinforcing Crises: Not All Polycrises Are Equal

October 19, 2023

by Charles Hugh Smith Of Two Minds

That’s the difficulty with nonlinear, mutually reinforcing crises: our over-confidence, hubris and refusal to consider sacrifices will be our undoing.

Back in 2017 when I composed this graphic of overlapping crises, the word polycrisis was not yet in common use. Polycrisis has various definitions for example: “the simultaneous occurrence of several catastrophic events.”

But this doesn’t explain the truly dangerous dynamic in polycrisis, which is the nonlinear, mutually reinforcing potential of disparate crises to generate effects much larger than the initial causes. This definition is closer to the mark: “Many different problems happening at the same time so that they together have a very big effect.”

Put another way: 1 + 1 + 1 doesn’t generate an effect of 3, it generates an effect of 9.