The Industrial Revolution Reconsidered: Hard Steps, The Great Filter, and Doomsday

Wim Naudé
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Wim Naudé: RWTH Aachen University & University of Coimbra, CeBER

No 2026-04, CeBER Working Papers from Centre for Business and Economics Research (CeBER), University of Coimbra

Abstract: The Hard Steps model is applied to argue that the Industrial Revolution (IR) heralded a terminal phase of human existence. Assuming six hard steps, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov method is used to pinpoint the start of the IR to ˜ year 1700. Once these hard steps were cleared, the global economy entered a growth spiral which, as in the multistage carcinogenesis model of cancer, will terminate once a lethal burden is reached. The Doomsday Argument suggests this happening within 900 years. Thermodynamic limits, however, indicate a limit in less than 400 years, and of about 26 years after invention an Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI). The IR may be the Great Filter, explaining the Fermi Paradox. Alternatively, current human observers may be living in an ancestor simulation designed to study late-stage capitalism.

Keywords: Industrial Revolution; capitalism; economic growth; collapse (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J11 N10 O40 P10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2026-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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