"Faith begins precisely where thinking leaves off.” - Soren Kierkegaard

“Technological innovation is more driven by excess, exuberance, and irrationality than by cost-benefit analyses, rational calculation, and careful and deliberate planning.” - Boom

Bubbles, progress, and the limits of thinking

When we first put men in space it was inextricably linked to the ascent to Heaven. Wernher von Braun thought it was profoundly important “for religious reasons that [mankind] travel to other worlds, other galaxies.” The astronauts themselves reported their experiences being “transcendent.” Their faith gave them the courage to risk everything for their missions.

Today’s technology and culture is largely drained of such meaning. Although we pay homage to last century’s technology mega projects, our risk taking feels empty in comparison. We celebrate founders as brave disruptors while they execute the slight variations on proven businesses. We praise "innovative" research that carefully builds on established paradigms. We applaud financial risk-taking that's really backstopped by state intervention. Across society we've replaced genuine uncertainty and risk with its careful performance.

In Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber’s excellent new book Boom this risk intolerance is diagnosed as the source of the “Great Stagnation” - a general stagnation and/or decline in our culture, technology, and economy. Drawing from another source, Danish philosopher Kierkegaard captured the difference between a performative, risk intolerant age with a passionate, risk-taking age in his parable of the jewel on thin ice:

If the jewel which every one desired to possess lay far out on a frozen lake where the ice was very thin, watched over by the danger of death, while, closer in, the ice was perfectly safe, then in a passionate age the crowds would applaud the courage of the man who ventured out, they would tremble for him and with him in the danger of his decisive action, they would grieve over him if he were drowned, they would make a god of him if he secured the prize. But in an age without passion, in a reflective age, it would be otherwise. People would think each other clever in agreeing that it was unreasonable and not even worth while to venture so far out. And in this way they would transform daring and enthusiasm into a feat of skill, so as to do something, for after all ‘something must be done.’

The crowds would go out to watch from a safe place, and with the eyes of connoisseurs appraise the accomplished skater who could skate almost to the very edge (i.e. as far as the ice was still safe and the danger had not yet begun) and then turn back. The most accomplished skater would manage to go out to the furthermost point and then perform a still more dangerous-looking run, so as to make the spectators hold their breath and say: ‘Ye Gods! How mad; he is risking his life.’

But look, and you will see that his skill was so astonishing that he managed to turn back just in time, while the ice was perfectly safe and there was still no danger. As at the theatre, the crowd would applaud and acclaim him, surge homeward with the heroic artist in their midst, to honour him with a magnificent banquet. For intelligence has got the upper hand to such an extent that it transforms the real task into an unreal trick, and reality into a play.

In the reading of Boom, we have taken the dynamic of this parable to its logical extreme - developing unprecedented technological and institutional capabilities to minimize risk while maintaining its appearance. We are masters of staying on thick ice, even while we put on a great performance that would suggest otherwise.

But something has been lost as we’ve sunk deeper into risk intolerance and performance. Whereas the last century brought us unprecedented vitality and progress, the 21st has stagnated or declined. In 1969 we put a man on the moon; by 2011, with the final space shuttle flight, the US government could no longer send humans into space. Through examples like this across culture, science, and technology Boom eruditely shows how we have slowed down and beckons us to accelerate.

But how? How do we drop the performance, skate on thin ice again, and deliver ourselves from our Great Stagnation? Boom’s answer is simple: bubbles.

The case for bubbles

At first brush the reader might bristle because bubbles have quite a bad reputation in our age. For the average person, bubbles probably bring to mind the excesses of the dotcom bubble, the housing bubble that preceded the 2008 financial crisis, or perhaps the crime of SBF.

But Boom works hard to restore a positive vision for bubbles. The thesis goes something like this: real breakthroughs are more driven by excess and exuberance than careful, rational planning. Bubbles are powerful mechanisms for coordinating this kind of exuberance - they create shared optimistic visions of the future that draw in talent and capital. And while bubbles inevitably lead to excesses and losses, their long-term benefits in driving real progress far outweigh these short-term costs. This matters especially now, Boom argues, because if we want to escape our current stagnation we need bubbles not just as accidents of progress but as essential mechanisms for breaking free from our risk-intolerant equilibrium.

Much of the book is dedicated to substantiating this thesis’ different components. We learn much about the history of different bubbles and the technologies they have furnished. We learn the theory of bubbles and how to differentiate between different types (you want the sort that creates a real inflection point), as well as what differentiates a good and bad bubble. We learn about the subtle technological and social dynamics of bubbles.

The case made was interesting, wide ranging, and in the end directionally compelling. The Manhattan project gave us nuclear power and a good reason to develop better rockets. The Apollo program subsidized the early stages of the transistor, preceding modern computing. The dotcom bubble gave us fiber optic cables and a generation of internet talent. Each instance had defined, shared optimistic visions, short term excesses, long-term benefits, and were notable progress inflection points. After Boom I don’t know if I’m ready to say bubbles are essential, but I would claim they are deeply important.

After stressing the stagnation of our time and making the case for acceleration through bubbles, Boom turns to a higher calling: preaching the transcendent mission of bubbles.

Bubbles and the limits of thinking

Bubbles are powerful precisely because they channel society's suppressed desires and mimetic energies into technological breakthroughs. They do this through a quasi-religious mechanism: creating transcendent visions of the future that collapse the distance between present speculation and future reality.

This religious aspect isn't metaphorical. Bubbles follow patterns remarkably similar to religious eschatology, moving from prophecy to salvation. Their core participants are often driven by a deep belief in future possibilities that aren’t yet visible in the present. This explains the messianic zeal of bubble participants, from the Manhattan project to crypto advocates. They're not just making bets - they're driven by prophetic visions of the future they want to help realize technologically.

Crucially, Boom argues, our current stagnation stems not from a lack of resources or ideas, but from a lack of these transcendent visions. In our risk-averse, secular world we've largely lost the capacity for the kind of reality-distorting collective belief that enables major breakthroughs. What is truly scarce isn't natural resources or new ideas, but the courage to pursue radically different futures.

This points to why bubbles matter so much: they create the conditions for the kind of collective belief and commitment that are required to create “technologies of transcendence” that fundamentally transform the human condition. Breaking free from stagnation requires rediscovering this faith in and commitment to technological possibility.

Therein lies the limits of Boom: the book brilliantly analyzes the dynamics of breakthrough progress without being able to generate them. We can read about bubbles and understand their quasi-religious nature, just as we can study the technique of skating to the edge of thin ice. But neither analysis can produce the thing itself - the courage to venture after real jewels, the transcendent faith that drives genuine breakthroughs.

This is because rational understanding is fundamentally different from faith. You cannot read your way into faith any more than you can analyze your way into courage. These require a leap of faith beyond comprehension, a commitment that transcends rational understanding. In the words of Kierkegaard, "Faith begins precisely where thinking leaves off." Despite Boom’s erudite thinking and edifying call to action, it cannot induce the kind of transcendent faith in its mission of progress that the world needs.

What then is to be done? Boom valiantly tries to chart a narrow path between technological determinism and individual agency. It details the systemic forces behind bubbles by regaling us with economic histories, social theories, and macro arguments for why society needs this faith. At the same time, it builds on this foundation to stress agency with stories of the personal visions and individuals behind past breakthroughs.

But analyzing the physics of thin ice or reading about breathtaking past performances does not make one brave enough to skate on thin ice oneself. Faith is fundamentally individual, requiring a personal confrontation with uncertainty and possibility that no theory can capture. As such, reigniting faith requires starting with the individual - even if there is interplay between systemic forces and individual agency in history.

Like Kierkegaard's relentless focus on Abraham's personal struggle with an impossible duty, we need to confront individuals with what pursuing genuine breakthroughs actually requires: the willingness to stand alone before uncertainty, to venture beyond what reason can justify, to bear the anxiety of pursuing what others cannot understand - often for many, many years. To that end, a follow up to Boom might focus on deep, personal accounts of individuals and how they maintained faith in their visions - both the isolation and doubt this demanded, and the sense of transcendent purpose that made it possible.

Only by making the personal demands of technological faith clear might we help individuals recognize both its difficulty and necessity. For somewhere out there on the thin ice lies not just a jewel but our next great leap forward, waiting not for better understanding but for the courage to venture after it.

Thank you to Hasu, Eric, Tina, and especially Tobias for their review and thoughts on earlier drafts of this post.