This past week, one tiny mistake in the code of a single third-party provider, one designed to secure software, was released without proper staging. Over the course of hours that turned to days, vast swaths of the civilized world stopped working. Flights were grounded. Deliveries stopped. Bank software collapsed. Security systems froze. Even many electronic doors stopped working. All over the world.

Now we find that the whole of life depends on systems no one in particular controls, which have never really been tested, and which cannot be fixed. The possibility of global breakage for an unlimited amount of time is very real. Think of it: even our lights and air systems are networked and running on apps, to say nothing of the whole of the fiat-based and debt-driven monetary and financial systems themselves.
And yet here we are, with all the capital and energy being designated to building even more such systems, this time being run by artificial intelligence. Again, they are being constructed not as strong by virtue of decentralizatio n but weak due to their central points of failure. As the parable says, these are houses built not on stone but sand.

Jeffery Tucker