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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 พ.ย. 2024
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Professor Joseph Tainter is an American anthropologist and historian studied anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Northwestern University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1975. As of 2012 he holds a professorship in the Department of Environment and Society at Utah State University.
In this interview Professor Tainter discusses the thesis of his widely acclaimed work “The Collapse of Complex Societies”, 25 years after its publication in 1988. His book is among great classics of the study of collapse. In my view a work whose quality and relevance is comparable to Limits to Growth.
Link to his book:
www.abebooks.c...
We discuss the following with Prof. Tainter:
1) What is “collapse”? What is “complexity”?
2) Can you explain your theory of decreasing marginal returns over complexity?
3) What was particularly "complex" with the Western Roman Empire?
4) Why has the Western Roman Empire collapsed while the Eastern Roman Empire has not collapsed?
5) Why do you think Western society has NOT collapsed for 1500 years now? Why has it NOT collapsed over the last 200 years?
6) What major instances of decreasing marginal returns over complexity do you observe in global modern society?
7) What do you think of “Limits to Growth” by Meadows et. al?
#josephtainter #collapse #romanempire #plansb #cyrusfarhangi
Thank you for bringing on the guest.
Your questions and understanding of the content needed more work to draw out better answers from the guest
Wooow, so amazing to see the man behind the book. Been through it at least 3 times, one ten ps l plus years ago in English, past years reading in french and recently again so happy to see it on audible, thank you very much!
Dr. A
33:00 This might have been an intentionally simplified explanation, but i think a major point is that Europe was precisely not One civilization, but dozens and hundreds of independently run states. So I'd argue besides colonization it's mostly decentralization and equivalently smaller, less complex and more stable systems, that prevented any major civilizational collapse, even when individual areas were struggling, like Eastern Europe during the Mongol invasions, central Europe during the 30 year war, or more mildly the economic downturn of Spain in the 17th century.
Declining marginal returns on innovation, energy extracted etc... thanks for interviewing Professor Tainter.
Thank you. This was a pretty good presentation.
This is a huge topic. It’s one reason I sort of like the idea of biofuels like how they ran pickups during WW2 when diesel was limited. Fossil fuels can make society run even if there was a collapse as many old technologies or equipment can be run without fancy computer chips etc.
Makes me thing of the walking dead zombie series where they literally are like refining oil at a well to then get usable fuel. That’s so much more realistic then hoping to build windmills or solar panels if society collapses.
someone is thinking straight !! where do I send you a medal ?? It's so rare !! They are building/fabricating a collapse with extreme dependence on unreliable machinery ... a few weeks ago a friend in Costa Rica explained to me that her car with chip was weeks in the shop because no programming machine available to reprogram her car ... huge queue ... 2 of these machines in the entire country ... small business owner !! When there should be a very careful thought about where these chips are produced and not just Taiwan ... and a mix between old and new technology IS REALLY THE PRECISE VISION NEEDED ... ELECTRIC CARS WILL SOON BE FORCED IN 7 STATES IN THE USA ... INSTEAD OF MIXING THE PARK ... with half the cars electric and well distributed ... if African kids do not harvest the lithium and if the batteries do not poison the waters ... for later accusations when people do not choose anything but are steered by social changers with ZERO LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY ... can people make coffee without microchips ?? I do !!
A mix of energies is OK but not brash radical unreliable changes and without destroying landscape while pretending to be "green" ... A BALANCE !! A WORD THAT IS EMPTY TODAY in a era of deforming reformers !!
@@sandrahmonthieuxpelage8915the earth is flat
@22:00 regarding western Roman collapse, Tainter mentions the disease of empires: replacing taxation with conquest but he avoids mentioning the transformation of the republic into large latifundia owned by a very few patrician families. The same we’re experiencing today. There was no means to pay for public services because the few who owned everything didn’t want to subsidise the state.
No. The way society is setup is the problem. It’s not that the government can’t tax to pay for public services. The U.S. can tax people it’s just it needs to cut government size in half. The U.S. needs to stop giving money to build egypts army or gender studies in Afghanistan whatever.
Look at nato. What empire ever provided protection to subjects and then not tax those subjects? That’s a HUGE problem. The point is the U.S. uses the army to force countries to use dollars so the government borrows and prints more and offshored the inflation. It’s why when Lybia and iraq wanted to sell oil in gold the Us overthrew them!
The U.S. could FIX things. The U.S. just needs to tell europe okay we’ll charge you cost plus twenty percent for providing military protections like normal profit seeking mercenaries would do.
The issue is the public services the Us is providing is to the world but then trying to tax only Americans haha it’s hilarious. It’s like not patriotic to give free college to Americans but it’s patriotic to give free college basically to Europe. That’s how I think about it.
I watched congress on Forbes the other night. NATO knew group wanted 40 million and europe would put up a billion and some republicans were like well we need europe to start paying the 2% for nato before we do anything.
Republicans are corrupt cause like when bush was in office they should have forced europe to pay their 2% or at least cost. It’s not about accountability and public services. It’s about power. Look at the nord stream pipeline.
Id say good luck to JFKs nephew that’s running for office but if he’s sincere it’s like why are you running? They killed your uncle they can take you out at anytime haha.
@koltoncrane3099 you have all the answers. What's it like?
@@koltoncrane3099the way you "think" about it is your problem. Have you considered therapy?
Si vous souhaitez me soutenir dans mon travail, j'explique tout cela sur Tipeee :
fr.tipeee.com/plans-b
The man himself! I listened to Chris Hedges refer to “the collapse of complex societies” for several yrs before I purchased the book.
Bravo Cyrus ! Quelle classe de recevoir Joseph Tainter :)
Merci 🙂 mais la classe c'est surtout lui ! Moi je n'ai fait que lire son bouquin (qui explique quand même beaucoup beaucoup de choses) et lui écrire un mail.
Thanks. Yet more books I must get. Great
E. M. Forster, The Machine Stops
“Courage! courage! What matter so long as the Machine goes on? To it the darkness and the light are one.”
And though things improved again after a time, the old brilliancy was never recaptured, and humanity never recovered from its entrance into twilight.
There was an hysterical talk of “measures,” of “provisional dictatorship,” and the inhabitants of Sumatra were asked to familiarize themselves with the workings of the central power station, the said power station being situated in France.
But for the most part panic reigned, and men spent their strength praying to their Books, tangible proofs of the Machine’s omnipotence.
There were gradations of terror - at times came rumours of hope - the Mending Apparatus was almost mended - the enemies of the Machine had been got under - new “nerve-centres” were evolving which would do the work even more magnificently than before.
But there came a day when, without the slightest warning, without any previous hint of feebleness, the entire communication-system broke down, all over the world, and the world, as they understood it, ended."
Great interview, Thanks!
His book is great. I first read it in the early 90s and the ideas have held up very well. I’ve passed it on to friends as well but unfortunately it’s been out of print and expensive. 🙂
Much better than Diamond’s book, which is repetitive and unconvincing.
Excellent and absorbing discussion partially messed up by 1970s audio quality.
Thank you for this, and kudos to the YT robot for presenting this.
In my view, complex civilizations collapse for the same reason complex anything collapses: entropy. As soon as you build a bridge or a civilization, it is in *immediate* need of maintenance. For either to maintain, there need to be *a lot* of people *passionately* interested in doing maintenance when things are good. As Kurt Vonnegut said about fiduciaries, this is impossible, what with the brain and the ding-dong.
This may seem reductionist, and doubtless there are many interesting details fascinating to academics who spend a lifetime studying this, but no theory that fails to take this into account can be considered complete.
In the case of our current collapsing civilization, there have been a lot of great ideas on how to keep the maintenance up. One of the most appealing is public education. Nice idea; shame about the reality. By the time things get bad enough people notice, it's too late, and systemic proclivities carry the collapse. Before this point, people don't care about civics.
Of course I am focusing on the collapse of mostly democratic civilizations, but that's what we have now for the most part today.
‘This may seem reductionist’ No shit lol vague af metaphor which no explanation on which parts of the society relate to parts of the bridge and what maintenance involves
@@SamWilkinsonn Literate people discuss rather than blow snot. You aren't one Plonk.
@@deadman746Arguably you aren't much of one either if you're leaning on Vonnegut to make your point for you. Literacy is hardly synonymous with wisdom, and I see you made that distinction for us, yourself, in your retort.
There is of course a maintenance cost to civilization that is most poignantly made by Howard T Odum's Maximum Power principle, but this only deals in games Nash would say have with no imperfect information.
Since I can lie, and you can lie, and I know that you might lie, and that I'm telling you I might lie, the complexity of the game and the induction of manipulation of cognitive bias techniques alla Edward Bernays are induced and now your civilization is subject to my willingness to bend the game to my advantage, up to, and including, destroying it for my own self interest, at your expense.
Civilizations collapse when the productive members of society decide the cost exceeds the benefit of maintaining it, and that is generally about the time that a majority lack the skills, but expect the production, of the goods and services to which they've become accustomed to enjoying.
Since the portion of the population even aware of declining EROEI is a rounding error in even six nines of purity, one can safely conclude the globally connected civilization is on the verge of collapse with individual nations, corporations, and individuals trying not to slip lower than others on the way down.
You can of course truncate your "civilization" down to your immediate community, friends, family or self, and become self sufficient, but let's be honest, Vonnegut? You're not gonna make it.
@@skeetorkiftwon More _ad hominem._ Perhaps this means something. It isn't worth the effort distinguishing between leaning on and quipping. Plonk.
@@deadman746 Is the "plonk" closer an OCD problem, or just the best insult you can manage as a puerile quim?
I did, however, consider the reason for your reduction of the matter in relation to your use of Vonnegut: Your understanding of most any topic is truncated at the young adult reading level. Which is likely why both the references to Odum and Nash wash right over your wooden head. Anyway, I'll let you get back to your Harry Potter novels.
This sounds like an expression of the thermodynamic law of entropy.
U are right!
How so?
Engineer and ya, same. We're watching the social sciences and humanities are figuring out what they are observing as entropy.
Well every human and every large society is a machine that perpetually displaces entropy to achieve long term local complexity. The existence of many such things proves it's silly to use entropy alone as an explanation for why continuation or improvement of complex structures is impossible.
I don't understand how the concept of overshoot could possibly be singled out as something to be excluded in his equation of what should be recognized in the phenomenon of collapse. Obviously, when we're dealing with systems, most forms of adaptation involve the increasing of complexity he speaks of, which overshoot seems well aware of, or which is at least available to be placed into its concept, allowing for the grace of accepting that limited concepts aren't obligated to explain in depth every other factor. Overshoot well enough encounters it by considering those situations in which increased complexity is no longer an option, or in which in the present day things have become global. For instance, outsourcing costs in order to take advantage of expenditure in the homeland while the colonized or the exporting nations have to stomach the waste or damage is definitely a thing in considerations of overshoot. That's what the concept of "carrying capacity" was all about in William R. Catton's version of overshoot. There is no way in which overshoot overlooked the concept of adaptation, since the increase in complexity was the very danger of adaptation that costs energy that overshoot repeatedly factored into its explanation. I see that Joseph Tainter was on Nate Hagens channel just a year ago, which I watched at the time. So I'll have to watch that again and see what the hell is going on here with his assertions.
When will the growth of complexit and bureaucracy in universities reach a limit? Fascinating talk.
they already have I'm afraid, Universities were formed on the premise of information dissemination but that is no longer needed. These types of institutions will soon become a thing of the past.
Très bel entretien.
Overshoot is simply one of several potential terminal issues. It depends on the society and their specific technologies, growth, and needs. IN all cases it is relatively easy to say collapse is due to running out of the ability to solve problems. This is seems like another extrapolation of energy/entropy theory.
I believe this gentleman needs to recognize that 'information' adding to complex societies takes on a completely different dynamic when moving at the speed of light. He is using out dated print based lines of thinking here, and by that I mean things like concrete identifiable bits of information, reasoning, linear thinking, institutions, etc., when however, communication at the speed light means that ALL of that changes. There is no precedent here to form these types of literacy and and print based lines of opinions.
Sorry, this doesn't make sense. Even if information moves at the speed of light, it doesn't mean that people can take all of it up.
You can go to any library that you want to and pick up a book about price controls why they have not worked for the last several thousand years.
If you believe in The Lindy effect, they will not work for an equal number of thousands of years.
And yet and still, you can find huge cities such as New York that still have rent controls, and so you can conclude that it doesn't matter how fast the information is traveling if it just does not get through.
I'm sorry but I respectively disagree - authorship disappears at the speed of light as does any sense of POV perspective - in fact, the concept of the individual is quickly coming to an end, unfortunately. We are retribalizing. @@Lpm100
Nice english! ;) And great guest! And well conduced interview, thanks!
Thank you 🙂 my English has unfortunately declined since 2008 when I left London, but I am still able to read and understand The Collapse of Complex Societies, so I still meet minimum vital requirements 🙂.
Merci Cyrus pour cette nouvelle vidéo avec ce grand scientifique !
Ever heard Étienne Chouard and the way he explains how a conscious minority overtook power for the worst ?
What did he do for 37 years between the PHD and the professorship?
12:45 As you increase in complexity as a society, the energy cost of being that society tends to grow and grow
If each step of specialization was undertaken because it yielded an economic return, doesn't that imply the opposite? That each step towards greater complexity was undertaken because it reduced the costs incurred to meet some need or desire?
When private owners discharge governments.
📍34:00
Fiat money is the core problem.
Great question to compare his theory to the limits to growth. I was also wondering what differences there is with Ivan Illitch Theory developped in Tools for conviviality that industrialization in all domains always reaches a point where the benefits become overcomed by the inconvenients and what he thinks of the principles of conviviality of tools Illitch develops in order to avoid this issue (like relying on tools that are accessible to everyone, that do not lock us into using them, that do not take productivity as only goal, and that avoid polarization of power (and maybe some other principles I don't remember...)). In the same vein, I also wonder what he'd think of the low tech movement... anyway, these were my questions after seing the interview. Maybe for another interview :)
Génial, merci 🤩
Humans were not ready morally, ethically and intellectually to start the mass extraction of fossil fuels with the advent of the steam engine 300 years ago.
The Magna Carta requires today overhauling - adding to it the right for humans to understand what Energy really is - before any other commandment;
“In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most.
No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores.
No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it.
This universal truth applies to all systems.
Energy, like time, flows from past to future” (2017).
Angkor Wat
1500 hundred years without a civil collapse? What about the Persian empire and so advanced
Yeah that sounded a bit sus to me
Super intéressant :)
L'historien français Bruno Dumézil a produit un super livre et vous pouvez trouver facilement ses conférences passionnantes à propos des "invasions barbares" avec un point de vue sourcé par de réels travaux d'historiens.
I'm curious to what Tainter's view on Fossil Fuels are. Oh wait! I know.... He hates them.
@jaysphilosophy1951 Not true. He has long pointed out the problems of transitioning to “sustainable “ energy sources and the need for fossil fuels as part of an overall strategy.
I'm also wondering on what he is working on now :)
Isn't it 35 years ago? I was born in 1988, wish I was 25, but time has no mercy... 😮
Anybd. aware of growing mankind?, and every step it made is caused by reaching a certain number?
rome 2.0 was never complex, perhaps byzantine and bureacratic but not complex.
it's still falling with bread and circuses.
Y a des sous titres ou une traduction ????
Bonjour et merci pour votre intérêt. Malheureusement non, le temps me manque. Existerait il un bon générateur automatique de sous-titres ?
@@plansb5415 un mini résumé écrit est-il possible ? Sur Facebook ou LinkedIn ?
The sky is falling! Hoard toilet paper!
Moscow is the successor and the third Rome. Their Tzars were named Romanov. Byzantium was orthodox and Russia was part of the orthodox Byzantine empire or second Rome. When Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Mehmet Moscow still stood and continued to defy the Ottomans. Moscow is the actual successor to Rome, Rome never fell. Collapse is an illusion. Energy cannot be destroyed, but merely transferred. Today the Kremlin can be observed, a city of classical antiquity it was designed by Renaissance architects. If you want to see what has become of Rome in modernity, visit Moscow.
Oh please...
@@ms-jl6dl Ivan III the reigning Monarch married the sister of Emperor Constantine and had a family, those children continued the official Roman bloodline. You would have to be obtuse not to understand that Rome stands in continuity from antiquity to modernity in the location of Moscow.
@@AugustusOmegaByzantine royals were married more or less to all corners of the known world, as were those of other Roman "successor" states. We probably all have some amount of royal Byzantine, Frankish, Mongol etc. blood in our veins. Monarchies and dynasties don't mean much to the cultures they come to rule, even less their particular bloodline, they come and go, rise and fall. And if you take something as obviously arbitrary as Renaissance architecture as an indicator... Well, have you heard about a region called Italy? I think they also had something to do with the Romans, not quite sure though...
@@domsjuk Very minimalist effort there. I am not saying Moscow were Roman founders, I am enlightening those that dont know that ROME STANDS INTO ETERNITY and I personally think President Putin looks like a Caesar. Put a reef on his head and baam! Julius. It is the continuity of the Roman fire I speak of, it died in Italia, it died in Constantinople. It s flame roars in Moscow.
Look at this file photo of General Armageddon. Tell me that face is not a modern day Roman General. Look at the royal blue flag behind him, the gold reef state emblem...I can picture that type of flag in the main caravan among the marching Legions to Germanium
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sergey_Surovikin_(2021_photomontage).jpg
Solution. Force high income earners and the wealthy to breed & prevent lower income earners from breeding.
They tried eugenics
@@bingflosby They didn't try very hard.
@@apollothirteen9236 they are still doing it and you are also part of the group they are trying to get rid of so calm down
You'd be trying to select humanity according to the demands and metrics of the entirely contingent and arbitrary set of factors of 21st century capitalism.
Molding something very inelastic (human gene pool) to fit something very elastic and contingent (current mass society capitalism) is a genuinely stupid idea.
@@domsjuk It's not only a smart solution, it's necessary for man's future survival. Rich people are on the top of the genetic gene pool. We need them breeding like rabbits, not the stupid people.
@6:40 .. uhhh... Easter Island?