Collapse of Complex Societies by Dr. Joseph Tainter (5 of 7)

http://localfuture.org The collapse of complex societies of the past can inform the present on the risks of collapse. Dr. Joseph Tainter, author of the book The Collapse of Complex societies, and featured in Leonardo Dicaprio's film The Eleventh Hour, details the factors that led to the collapse of past civilizations including the Roman Empire.

This is part 5 of 7 of a keynote talk delivered to the 2010 International Conference on Sustainability: Energy, Economy, and Environment organized by Local Future nonprofit and directed by Aaron Wissner.

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[jfv65]

interesting lecture but i think Tainter is a bit naive on 2 points:

- the 2008 economic cllapse was not due to over complexity but to outright and blatent endemic financial FRAUD. By Wallstreet banksters. They have defacto taken over the White house and installed a strawman (qt. Lou Reed)

- US elections will never be settled by 'adult converstation' because Dems and Cons are 2 sides of the SAME corporate coin! Democracy doesn't exist anymore on the US Fed level. Fed elections are a sideshow.

[panstriato2]

I choose don´t solve the problem, it´s better to see the problem as a solution. For example, don´t see human manure as a waste (problem) see it as fertilizer!.

Something not mentioned here is that many of our problems are percived problems not real ones. Also, solving problems is not the only way to deal with them, we can also prevent them (it would also have a complexity cost but it is orders of magnitude cheaper).

Thank for uploading, Tainter is great!

[gnomechomskylives]

@lordmetroid By Roman standards yes. Their pre-enlightenment values justified the measures they took. I don't believe the speaker is applauding what they did, but simply acknowledging that their actions were logical within the context of the challenges facing their society. Perhaps I'm being too apologetic, but in my estimation, even in 300-400AD our Judeo-Christian sense of justice and fair play was not prevalent throughout much of the Western world.

[pfeiffer101]

@lordmetroid - I'd just like to add that it can be better to not get a patent for some companies. If you have a chemical product which can not be reversed engineered easily then you should not get a patent since your competitors can copy your formula with a few minor adjustments. So patents do not equal innovation and also leave out innovation. What is a good metric to look at in terms of quantifying innovation?

[lordmetroid]

Romans, acted ethically? If you consider fascism, slavery, organized religion and so on ethical, you must have a screw lose!

All I hear from this lecture is that societies collapse because the elites wants an ever increasing share of the productivity and when the time comes that it is unachievable to sustain the elites infinite hunger of power and wealth because they sucked all their serves dry. We call that a collapse.

[lordmetroid]

Anyone with even the slightest insight knows 1 Patent does not equal to 1 innovation. Patents are nothing today but weapons of mass destruction used between corporations to ensure that if one company decides to attack another, mutual destruction will ensue.

Of course smaller companies and innovator does not have a big arsenal and hence obliterated by first sight of their business being successful. Hence patents are actually stifling wealth creation.

[happyseaurchin]

@vjillh nice, good luck :) good lecture, though no maths, except stats... no mention of problem prevention, in fact, he dismisses flippantly, "not solve the problem"... he can't escape fromthe limiting parameters of money, which vjillhh mentions wrt demurrage, though i prefer weighted moneyflow...

[vjillh]

then we would invest not in amassing currency for our future well being, but infrastructure (planting forests, watersheds that keep our lakes & bays healthy, ect..)

ok - this is not a reasonable format for further explanation - but the idea i'm pointing to is a currency that has a 'holding fee' - a demurrage currency...

i'm working to set up a page for discussion of these ideas on bnotes.org

[vjillh]

when we moved away from being self-sufficient individuals, dependent on the functioning of the society as a whole - we allowed for the creation of great new innovations/wealth - but we need to recognize that we haven't lived up to the bargain of sharing this wealth equitably . i feel the reason for that is that we've allowed ourselves to see currency as a third market (the 3 being: good/services, labor, captial). if instead we look at capital as a utility that must be maintained...

[vjillh]

We need a monetary system that recognizes the true 'store of value' is the health of the living systems on this planet. as long as the currency is more valuable than the infrastructure for which it was intended to act as the instrument of our creation of - then people will hoard currency & not healthy living systems... when we moved from simple barter into the specialized fields of knowledge & skills we recognized the increased 'productivity of labor' without acknowledging our interdependence

[vjillh]

the last slide (Adult Conversation) needs to be the starting point for a new monetary vision. our current monetary system puts the 'store of value' in the currency - which is the direct cause of the speculative bubbles. because the currency can grow in value faster than tangible assets - for example David Korten's conversation with Malaysian forestry minister about benefits of cutting down all the trees in their country because interest grows faster than the trees. (The Great Turning)