Human conflict is often a response to changes in tempo rather than to the actions themselves.
- We argue morality when the issue is tempo.
- We argue legality when the issue is acceleration.
- We argue intent when the issue is predictability.
By naming acceleration as a distinct variable, we gain something valuable: the ability to describe discomfort without immediately assigning blame.
Instead of asking:
- Is this right or wrong?
- Is this allowed or forbidden?
- Is this good or bad?
We can first ask:
- Has the rate of change exceeded the system’s capacity to adapt?
That question is calmer.
More precise.
And often more honest.
Humans implicitly assume continuity unless signaled otherwise.
We expect the world to proceed tomorrow at roughly the same pace it did yesterday. We assume people, institutions, technologies, and environments will behave with some degree of temporal consistency. This assumption is so deep that we rarely notice it – until it’s violated.
And when it is violated, we don’t experience it as “a change in velocity.”
We experience it as threat.
Not moral threat.
Not legal threat.
Not even intentional threat.
Just instability.
In physics, there’s a principle so basic it’s often overlooked: constant velocity is indistinguishable from rest.
According to Newton’s First Law, an object moving at a constant speed in a straight line experiences no net force. From inside the system, nothing feels like it’s happening. There is no signal. No disturbance. No information.
Only when velocity changes, such as when an object accelerates or decelerates, does force become detectable.
Acceleration is motion made visible.
This distinction matters far beyond physics, because humans operate the same way.
Speed Itself Isn’t the Issue — Speed of Change Is
People notice when things are moving faster or slower than they are comfortable with, but they have blunt, imprecise words to objectively measure what they are feeling:
- “Things are moving too fast”
- “Progress is too slow”
- “Technology is accelerating”
- “The government is overreaching”
- “This relationship is going nowhere”
Speed alone is rarely what’s being perceived:
- If something moves quickly and has always moved quickly, it feels normal.
- If something moves slowly and has always moved slowly, it also feels normal.
What humans detect (emotionally and immediately) is acceleration: A sudden increase or decrease in tempo is the signal that something has changed, and that signal is interpreted first as a safety question, not as a value judgment.
Imagine a car at rest next to you. You likely pay no attention to it. But the moment it begins to move towards you, you notice.
That’s safety at rest and risk in motion.
Acceleration as a Universal Disturbance Signal
Across domains, the same pattern appears.
Relationships
- A relationship that escalates steadily often feels safe, even if it moves faster than average.
- A sudden jump — declarations of love, commitment, or permanence without ramp-up — feels aggressive or destabilizing.
Conversely, a relationship that stalls after steady forward motion triggers discomfort. The issue isn’t slowness. It’s deceleration without explanation.
Law and Governance
- Laws that exist but are enforced predictably fade into the background.
- When enforcement accelerates abruptly — raids, sweeps, sudden crackdowns — the reaction is fear and resistance, even among people who accept the law itself.
The disturbance comes from rate change, not legality.
Technology and AI
- Gradual capability improvements are absorbed without panic.
- Sudden leaps — systems doing in days what humans expect to take years — trigger unease, even when no explicit harm occurs.
The system hasn’t become immoral.
It has become temporally discontinuous with human expectations.
Physical Space and Machines
- Robots that move at consistent, human-scaled tempos feel safe.
- Robots that jerk, hesitate unpredictably, or suddenly accelerate feel dangerous or uncanny.
Not because of intelligence — but because acceleration breaks continuity.
Humans Instinctively Know Physics
Newton’s laws describe physical systems, but they also reveal something about perception.
Force is only detectable through acceleration.
Humans respond to the world the same way.
When velocity is constant, we relax.
When velocity changes, we pay attention.
When acceleration exceeds our ability to predict outcomes, we experience danger.
This is not emotional.
It’s structural.
It’s how biological systems maintain orientation in time.
Why This Matters
Acceleration is not inherently bad.
- Emergency response requires it.
- Innovation sometimes depends on it.
- Stalled systems occasionally need a jolt.
But unacknowledged acceleration (change without signaling), without ramp-up, or without context – is what breaks trust.
Humans don’t fear motion. They fear unexplained force.
Call to Action
We need a new, additional dimension of thinking objectively about problems and I believe that dimension needs to be “velocity and acceleration”.
By naming acceleration as a distinct dimension of analysis, we gain a way to examine instability before it is moralized, politicized, or personalized.
When we call out the velocity, it makes implicit emotions explicit and gives us a lever for change.
Instead of just saying, “Stop doing that, it’s wrong,” we can be more specific and say, “You’re moving faster than the rest of the group. The rate of change is too great. In order for me to feel safe, I need you to slow down.”
Some people already do this. Others can learn to use the tool.