Every now and then one stumbles across a graph. The X axis reads "Years". Sometimes this scale stretches back to the paleolithic era, sometimes it reaches back to the late 1990's. The Y axis is always different yet something alarmist in nature: "House Prices", "The Population of The Earth (billions)", "Homicides", "Immigrants", "Amount of Data Stored on Computers Worldwide", "Greenhouse Gas Emissions", or simple "Ants". The one constant is the fact that there "we" exist at the far right hand side of the curve. Back on the left the curve was almost a flat line. Then everything went wrong and now here we find ourselves on the right side with the curve screaming towards the sky, ready to burst out of the top of the graph, exit the medium upon which the graph is imprinted, and wrap itself around our throats to strangle us on the spot.
In no way is my description of the graph meant to downplay what is printed on the Y axis. Heck, we all have our own Y axis that concerns us and in most case these concerns are valid. What I would like to bring to light is my inability to tell whether or not these things are merely new words printed on the same old graphs that people in times preceding ours had: With their own curves, their own rates of acceleration, and their own labels.
Or, conversely, are we truly accelerating exponentially as a whole? Everything: Humanity, technology, the environment, and commerce. Have they all, all of the sudden, stepped on the gas and we are just happening to exist just at the right time and place to see it all go down? There are definitely days when I fell the acceleration and it scares me. Then again I'm not the first person in history to click my tongue and wish for the days of old.
What can I say, I'm like Fox News: I Report, You Decide.
