rise->complexity->exponential rise in resource consumption->running out of resources->fragmentation->decline.
A summary from two amazon reviews:
Tainter first elegantly disposes of the usual theories of social decline (disappearance of natural resources, invasions of barbarians, etc). He then lays out his theory of decline: as societies become more complex, the costs of meeting new challenges increase, until there comes a point where extra resources devoted to meeting new challenges produce diminishsing and then negative returns. At this point, societies become less complex (they collapse into smaller societies). For Tainter, social problems are always (ultimately) a problem of recruiting enough energy to “fuel” the increasing social complexity which is necessary to solve ever-newer problems.
Tainter argues that human societies exist to solve problems. He looks at a score of societal collapses, focusing on three: Rome, the Maya, and the Chacoan Indians of the American Southwest. As these societies solved problems—food production, security, public works—they became increasingly complex. Complexity however carries with it overhead costs, e.g. administration, maintaining an army, tax collection, infrastructure maintenance, etc. As the society confronts new problems additional complexity is required to solve them. Eventually a point is reached where the overhead costs that are generated result in diminishing returns in terms of effectiveness. The society wastefully expends its resources trying to maintain its bloated condition until it finally collapses into smaller, simpler, more efficient units.
Seems like the “cruft” theory of social rules. Everyone wants to do big picture design, no one wants to do rule maintenance. It take a collapse for bad rules to be wiped out.
Actually, it’s a basic pattern in almost any process, from stellar development to human life to ecology to society to you name it. I wonder if someone worked out the underlying math.
My reading of the given quote is the same as buybuy’s. Maybe you’re talking about a more general process? Your comment here is tantalizing, but I don’t have any particular reason to believe it; can you give examples, or explain it further, or something?
Here is an example from stellar evolution: hydrogen fusion at a certain core temperature, then a shorter phase of helium fusion at a higher temperature and brightness, eventually leading to a wildly fluctuating red supergiant, finally running out of stuff to burn and collapsing and/or exploding. The material the old dying star spewed out into the space becomes a seed for new stars to form, and so on.
Apparently Heraclitus/Kant/Hegel (later hijacked by Marx[ists]) each described a general pattern like this at some point as “dialectics”, thesis/antithesis/synthesis, negation of negation, quantity->quality, helical change etc., though my knowledge of philosophy is rather rudimentary, so someone more knowledgeable in the history of dialects feel free to chime in.
A one-line summary:
rise->complexity->exponential rise in resource consumption->running out of resources->fragmentation->decline.
A summary from two amazon reviews:
Seems like the “cruft” theory of social rules. Everyone wants to do big picture design, no one wants to do rule maintenance. It take a collapse for bad rules to be wiped out.
Actually, it’s a basic pattern in almost any process, from stellar development to human life to ecology to society to you name it. I wonder if someone worked out the underlying math.
My reading of the given quote is the same as buybuy’s. Maybe you’re talking about a more general process? Your comment here is tantalizing, but I don’t have any particular reason to believe it; can you give examples, or explain it further, or something?
Here is an example from stellar evolution: hydrogen fusion at a certain core temperature, then a shorter phase of helium fusion at a higher temperature and brightness, eventually leading to a wildly fluctuating red supergiant, finally running out of stuff to burn and collapsing and/or exploding. The material the old dying star spewed out into the space becomes a seed for new stars to form, and so on.
Apparently Heraclitus/Kant/Hegel (later hijacked by Marx[ists]) each described a general pattern like this at some point as “dialectics”, thesis/antithesis/synthesis, negation of negation, quantity->quality, helical change etc., though my knowledge of philosophy is rather rudimentary, so someone more knowledgeable in the history of dialects feel free to chime in.