Difference between revisions of "Why Societies, Civilizations & Empires Fall?"
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* Measures of Complexity | * Measures of Complexity | ||
** Another measure of increasing complexity is called Energy Return on Investment (EROI). This refers to the ratio between the amount of energy produced by a resource relative to the energy needed to obtain it. Like complexity, EROI appears to have a point of diminishing returns. In his book The Upside of Down, the political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon observed that environmental degradation throughout the Roman Empire led to falling EROI from their staple energy source: crops of wheat and alfalfa. The empire fell alongside their EROI. Tainter also blames it as a chief culprit of collapse, including for the Mayan. | ** Another measure of increasing complexity is called Energy Return on Investment (EROI). This refers to the ratio between the amount of energy produced by a resource relative to the energy needed to obtain it. Like complexity, EROI appears to have a point of diminishing returns. In his book The Upside of Down, the political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon observed that environmental degradation throughout the Roman Empire led to falling EROI from their staple energy source: crops of wheat and alfalfa. The empire fell alongside their EROI. Tainter also blames it as a chief culprit of collapse, including for the Mayan. | ||
| + | ** [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_complexity Social Complexity] | ||
Latest revision as of 14:38, 22 May 2021
Return to The Complexity Wall
- Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? - Luke Kemp As part of my research at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge (2-18-19)
- no single accepted theory for why collapses happen, historians, anthropologists and others have proposed various explanations, including:
- CLIMATIC CHANGE:
- ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION:
- INEQUALITY AND OLIGARCHY:
- COMPLEXITY: - a measure of complexity
- EXTERNAL SHOCKS:
- RANDOMNESS/BAD LUCK:
- Tainter writes "Societies are problem-solving collectives that grow in complexity in order to overcome new issues. However, the returns from complexity eventually reach a point of diminishing returns."
- Measures of Complexity
- Another measure of increasing complexity is called Energy Return on Investment (EROI). This refers to the ratio between the amount of energy produced by a resource relative to the energy needed to obtain it. Like complexity, EROI appears to have a point of diminishing returns. In his book The Upside of Down, the political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon observed that environmental degradation throughout the Roman Empire led to falling EROI from their staple energy source: crops of wheat and alfalfa. The empire fell alongside their EROI. Tainter also blames it as a chief culprit of collapse, including for the Mayan.
- Social Complexity
