I have always been interested in human dynamics, sociology, psychology and just the idea of how people behave. I have also been a science fiction fan. I have also been reading about human history and how things have changed over the last 1-2 years. So when I started reading the Foundation series again last year, I had a few realizations.

Foundation is a trilogy of books that forms key part of the overall chronological series of 15+ books by Isaac Asimov that captures the story from present day human society to galactic empire. The key tenet of foundation series is the science of psychohistory which is a mathematical framework to map out human future by modeling our history over a sufficiently large population of quadrillions of people.

Foundation is probably the book 10 or 11 of that 15 book series and as I read about how it portrayed galactic empire, its evolution and how it had started to decay, I couldn’t help but feel something in the back of my mind. It felt like some of what the book talked about felt like more generalizable observations about laws of humanity. Here are some of the laws that resonated with me

The law of increasing Administration costs

At the start of any new political system, it feels revolutionary. People are unhappy so a new system is born, that eventually starts capturing more and more of the world. The galactic empire of foundation series was welcomed by the various planets for it finally brought a measured peace in worlds torn about by fighting among various kingdoms.

But eventually all systems start becoming big, more people become prosperous, more people demand more out of life (as a baseline), the administration costs of bureaucracy continue increasing, there is not enough money coming in to manage the costs, people start becoming unhappy, they revolt and rebel, you need more law enforcement who want more baseline salary but there’s not enough money, so rebellion increases and law enforcement reduces and eventually the system collapses.

I feel like that is likely to happen with any system that grew, become prosperous and brought prosperity to a lot of people. Eventually the costs to manage the system will become such a big burden that it will bring the system down.

The law of increasing decreasing innovation

As all systems start becoming big and more people become prosperous and get to a baseline level of wealth to not have to worry about food, shelter and comfort, people start becoming content. There is a reduction in desire of wanting to go crazy, work long hours, take risks because life is somewhat stable and easy. There is a reduced social desire to innovate because well everything is great. As stable political systems evolve, eventually I feel innovation is bound to go down.

A personal example: at the start of my career, when I had no money and my entire life ahead of me – I wanted explosive growth, money and titles. Now that I have (comparatively) enough, I am not as motivated to work 70 hour weeks or do something crazy. Now I (mostly) desire stability. Similarly, the desire for an average person in africa to move up in life is significantly higher than an average american. Without this driving force, there is less innovation.

The law of increasing counter force

I think this is a very interesting one. We live in the middle of this omni-present democracy (unless you live in a few socialist countries). We believe this is the best system and will last forever. But people forget, democracy is less than 300 years old maybe? Democracy was a competing force that emerged as a counter force to monarchy and feudalism.

I have found that eventually a new idea / thought / system of thinking emerges as a opposing force to the given accepted way of thinking. As more people becoming dis-satisfied with status quo and as the status quo captures more and more of the market share, the opposition to this increases in similar proportion until these competing forces go head to head. And then we hit the tipping point and the new system becomes the dominant one while the old one slowly fades away.

Any system of thought we have, the more forcefully we try to have the entire world see it as a truth – the stronger the opposition will become. Eventually one of these opposing views will overturn the accepted way of thinking. There is not a single system of thought that has stayed true since the start of time. Even the widely accepted theory of gravitation was only found to be partially accurate eventually. Democracy, Capitalism, Socialism, Sexual preferences, marriage are all systems that will eventually be displaced by hidden forces that are already present among us and maybe growing as you read this article. No force is born without a competing counter force.

USA (present day)

When I read foundation, I am reminded of how closely the sequence of events of the galactic empire (and their capital world Trantor) remind me of the progression of events of US empire (if you believe US is an empire). I wonder if the US empire has also hit its peak and the growing distrust and discontent with status quo, the increasing desire of public for change, the ever increasing administration costs, the reducing innovation (if you exclude the immigration wave) are all pointing to a inflection point. It may not happen within our lifetimes but isn’t US empire also doomed to slowly fade away as have all other empires in the world.