By Miss Penny
Peter Thiel, key note speaker at the 2009 NYC Venture Summit, suggested America's recent economic strains can be attributed to capitalism's acceptance of "incremental growth" in technology. I would have preferred a hedge fund manager to regret his industry's guilt in our present calamity; but blindness to personal liability for one's profitable actions is not unique to those in the financial markets.
The exponential growth that Mr. Thiel prefers (and capitalist seek of their investments), in my opinion, is the fundamental source of the greed that resulted in the debt we are now required to pay.
We only need to look at nature for daily displays in the power and beauty of incremental growth. It is with the patience of the increment that the gray of winter is unraveled into the colors of spring; and the passion of our sexual pleasures become manifest with the birth of a child.
On the other hand, the explosive forces of Mr. Thiel's exponential growth have recently revealed catastrophic "bubble markets." The effect of these unbridled capitalist forces, that we now struggle to correct, hint of the natural theorem that destructive energy tests the viability of incremental growth. Again, we only need to look at nature for some guidance: genetically and incrementally engineered through the millenniums, an acorn shell shields the seed that will reforest a fire-scorched land.
Incremental growth is the progress of man through history. It is the patient and beautiful power of the increment that sustains rewarding social and biological evolution. At http://determined2.com, we have applied this principle to personal development: for only at one step at a time can we achieve our goals.
