ABSTRACT
In cultural processes, the forces move even faster, limiting a reflexive relationship to at most one round before driving one or both strategies to extinction. In human affairs, by contrast with biology, strategies vary at very high rates and replicate quickly (through imitation as well as instruction and enforcement). While recognizing this, it is crucial to bear inmind Soros’ point that variant strategies are all lacking in foresight. That is just anotherway of saying that uncertainty rules. What is more, in human affairs, there has been very strong selection for strategies that track changes in other strategies and influence their pay-offs in positive and negative feedback loops, i.e. reflexivity. Finally, unlike biological environments, human environments change rapidly. Once cultural reflexivity crosses a threshold, environments never remain stable long enough to select repeatedly for the same pairs of reflexively linking strategies. Thus repetition of the same boom/bust cycles never happens.
