In the modern world it is not that opposing ideas confront each other – it is aspirants to possess the same goods.

Nicolás Gómez Dávila

Classification of the way of thinking about the world, ideological affiliation is commonly read as the left/right division. My first associations with the idea of the left is reference to reason – human reason. It refers to progress, to the fact that the logic of history is to be named, that it is worth sacrificing the present for the benefit of a close, bright future – for a new, better model, better and better. Taking advantage of the benefits of science and being aware of the purposefulness of history, we let ourselves be seduced by the next messengers of the historical mission of the ultimate upgrade of humanity.

My first association with the idea of the right is tradition, referring to the past, to – often mythical – periods of harmony and happiness. A reference to the roots, to solutions, to paradigms of action that have worked, somewhere, sometime. It is enough to return to them or distil from the meanders of history, its circles, loops and conversions the extract of golden, better times – and instead of venturing into risky experiments focus on what is eternal, indestructible.

Ideas referring to bright future or lost golden times remain the two basic references shaping the thinking about reforming and improving reality

Of course, these associations – left/right, meaning either a march into a bright future/or return to lost golden times – are projected by the recently ended Iron Curtain division of the world into two blocs – of real socialism and free market capitalism. The world, in its ideological structure, was of course incomparably more diverse on both sides of the Curtain. But ideas referring to bright future or lost golden times still remain the two basic references shaping the thinking about reforming and improving reality. They are – to refer to the four ways of looking at the world presented earlier – stretched between what brought, and maybe still is able to bring, success and how we recognize the necessary new solutions because the complex system has indeed changed and the existing assumptions, algorithms, heuristics, paradigms cease to work.

Ideas that tell us how to achieve collective success in the surrounding world are, however, subject to strong limitations generated by our ability to recognize the consequences of the actions taken, by – as Taleb put it – the epistemic opacity of the world. I will try to describe these limitations, show the threats brought by the risk of modeling reality with its consequences, and I will try discuss the sources of danger – cognitive fallacies and colossal profits resulting from the scalability effect achieved in complex systems.