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Comment by adrianratnapala | Hacker News Reader

I like the "it's complicated" theory, but it also a bit of a cop-out. Can we not have a meta-theory? Here are three candidates:

1) Climate change. Doesn't directly cause famines because people adapt; but the adaptation might be e.g to become wondering marauders. Thus war, destruction famine etc.

2) Technological change. Iron-working upset existing power balances. The political results were different in different places but in the end there was a whole lot of war and chaos.

3) Luck. History is complicated and random things happen at all scales. Including total collapses of civilisations.

In each of these, the proximate causes of destruction are a complicated networks of events. But there are higher level explanations behind them.

Are these more general explanations testable? Are there good arguments for or against any of them?

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Joseph Tainter's theory (The Collapse of Complex Societies) is even more general. Societies collapse when "continued investment in complexity as a problem-solving strategy yields a declining marginal return". The idea is that initially, solutions to problems are found and society becomes more complex as a result, but the benefit of the solutions exceeds the cost of the complexity. But as the society develops, the benefit in the form of solutions to problems become smaller and the cost of servicing the additional complexity becomes larger, until the cost exceeds the benefit. Then things break down and society is forced to become a lot simpler.

Mumford had a similar view on the fate of cities.

"...the blind forces of urbanization, flowing along the lines of least resistance, show no aptitude for creating an urban and industrial pattern that will be stable, self-sustaining, and self-renewing. On the contrary, as congestion thickens and expansion widens, both the urban and the rural landscape undergo defacement and degradation, while the unprofitable investments in the remedies…serve only to promote more of the blight and disorder they seek to palliate."

It's also that to manage the complexity, individuals become hyper-specialized. So when a crisis comes along, that civilization can't repurpose people quickly enough to cope.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." — Robert Heinlein

It's my favorite Heinlein quote by far and I try to live by it but in the short term there is much to be gained for an individual by specializing, specialists tend to rake in the big bucks, generalists not so much.

Said by a character who lived to be 2000 years old.

A direct representation of this can be found in law. Countries start out with simple laws, then as society gets more complex the laws become substantially more complex as well, to the point where tax codes, private and criminal law are no longer wholly comprehensible by any single individual.

It shouldn't be a surprise that societies collapse though, everything has a life-cycle, even stars and the universe as a whole, it would be extremely surprising if something as simple as an organization made up of fragile humans would manage to last longer than say a millennium or so.

it would be extremely surprising if something as simple as an organization made up of fragile humans would manage to last longer than say a millennium or so.

Would it? In 868, the County of Portucale was created; in 1143 it became independent, with Vimaranes as its capital. Nowadays, Portugal is still around and Guimarães is still an important city, and while it certainly has its problems, I don't think it's in any danger of disappearing. Is it that exceptional?

Take Ethernet for example: we've had multiple distinct technologies that used the name, but we always call it ethernet (I suspect that we only avoided calling wi-fi "ethernet" is because wi-fi is shorter).

It is much the same for countries, who die and reform in approximately the same geographic location and keep the name to preserve the illusion of continuity. Portugal's history is far from free of such reformations, civil wars, etc...

It scares me a bit that this very much describes the current situation

It shouldn't overly scare you: It required a complex society to produce someone like Tainter, so it isn't proof of imminent dark ages, merely that to be able to posit a theory like this you'd have to be alive roughly now.

Just like the future isn't equally distributed we're now so mobile that you could likely outrun a collapse of your society if you saw it coming.

You're going to have to give up some creature comforts though, and possible more than just a few.

I don't like that theory. Sounds a lot like the current era.

"Including total collapses of civilisations."

It seems to be an inherent thing of civilizations to collapse.

The Collapse of Complex Societies https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Ar...

The collapse of our society seem to be inevitable. You don't have to believe is but I don't think we can beat mathematics in the long term:

"There is No Steady State Economy (except at a very basic level)" http://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady-stat...

Limits to Growth–At our doorstep, but not recognized http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-02-12/limits-to-growt...

Wealth And Energy Consumption Are Inseparable http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2012/01/wealth-and-energy-...

Galactic-Scale Energy http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e...

Quote: "But let’s not overlook the key point: continued growth in energy use becomes physically impossible within conceivable timeframes."

You might be right that our civilization is going to collapse eventually. However, in many of the advanced economies, we have had gdp growth has been separated from energy consumption for several decades.

I am more worried about the effects of advance technologies, including it getting in the hands of people like ISIS who want to take down Western Civilization.

"However, in many of the advanced economies, we have had gdp growth has been separated from energy consumption for several decades."

Do we?

"In recent years, a large share of the world’s manufacturing has been moved to developing countries. This shift gives the illusion that the developed countries can get along with less energy to produce their GDP. This is not really the case. The developed countries find themselves with a need for a large amount of imported goods. Their heavily services-oriented economies tend to grow slowly. This is because, with little energy use, it is difficult for these economies to make productivity gains." https://ourfiniteworld.com/2016/10/11/why-energy-prices-are-...

Plus the current model is really fragile. Come up with a way to disrupt 4-5 pacific ports at the right time and the world would plunge into depression due to the supply chain disruption.

"I am more worried about the effects of advance technologies, including it getting in the hands of people like ISIS who want to take down Western Civilization."

This is true and this may be another nail in the coffin.

"The threshold necessary for small groups to conduct global warfare has finally been breached, and we are only starting to feel its effects. Over time, in as little as perhaps twenty years and as the leverage of technology increases, this threshold will finally reach its culmination -- with the ability of one man to declare war on the world and win." John Robb

Here's a paper published just last week titled "Is Decoupling GDP Growth from Environmental Impact Possible?" (Their answer is "no.")

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/asset?id=10.1371/jo...

> "I like the "it's complicated" theory, but it also a bit of a cop-out. Can we not have a meta-theory?"

Isn't a "systems collapse" the meta-theory you're looking for?

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