4 ms·

It's a podcast with anthropologist from Vanderbilt, specializing in the downfall of civilizations I would have also loved a summary, but my curiosity was piqued

by slindz 9y ago

It's a podcast with anthropologist from Vanderbilt, specializing in the downfall of civilizations I would have also loved a summary, but my curiosity was piqued enough to give it a listen. Here are some hastily taken notes for anybody who wants a better gauge if the time is worth it to them: - The strengths of a civilization are often the cause of the downfall - Western economies focus on over production of a small number of things, then exchange for other goods - Counter movements aren't necessarily indicative of impending collapse - In the face of counter movements, leaders don't usually adjust strategy, rather they intensify their existing strategies - This intensifications are usually always counterproductive - The terms of Presidents or CEO's (4-8 years) are not long enough to meaningfully restructure things; this re-enforces the intensification approach, leading to bubbles, leading to collapses - Common patterns of this intensification include shorter and shorter term thinking - Hypercoherent societies are closely interconnected, working as a unit for shared prosperity - A challenge of hypercoherent societies is that if there's a problem in one area, it creates a huge impact on the whole (ie. computer network outages) - Competition/profits drive hypercohesion and the associated fragility of the system - Observations of 'this is the greatest period in <<something>>' are warning signs of status wars that could be construed as ominous - Dependence on unsustainable systems (ie. transportation infrastructure) creates an entanglement theory that prevents leaders from taking corrective action (ie. closing an sink hole of a subway line) - This entanglement theory compounds and can lead to speedy collapses

dboreham 9y ago
Ha! So Royalty was a good idea after all.
- Retric 9y ago
  Royalty tends to be a lot more stable than democracy's. However, while critically important it's also just one type of success. Interestingly, in less stable countries having a strong leader becomes preferred because of just how damaging chaos is.
  - jabl 9y ago
    > Royalty tends to be a lot more stable than democracy's. Is it? I've thought that the big advantage of democracies is that when people get fed up with their leaders, they can change them without a bloody revolution or civil war (which, as you say, is incredibly damaging). I mean, our dear democratically(?) elected politicians say or do dumb things just like any inbred royalty, but at least we can switch them peacefully. Of course, democracies aren't immune and can fail too. E.g. Germany in the 1930's, or for that matter Turkey 2017.
    - Retric 9y ago
      US had a massive civil war, further only a fraction of democracy's evem last 100 years. Germany, France, Turkey, Russia, Iran, etc are all well known. But, look at South America or Africa and you see many countries hold elections, but not consistently over time. PS: The US scores relatively low on several measures of democracy. Relatively few house seats are competitive with many candidates unposed. D.C. has zero power in congress yet can't even run it's own budget. The president frequently loses the popular vote by huge margins. Is so something of a nominal democracy where without massive backlash the people have little say.
- coldtea 9y ago
  It might or might not have been, but that doesn't derive from anything in the summary above.
- myth_drannon 9y ago
  And you can do a survival analysis on different political regimes using a Lifelines library (Python)! http://lifelines.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Intro%20to%20lifelines.html http://lifelines.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Intro%20to%20lifel...
varjag 9y ago
> The terms of Presidents or CEO's (4-8 years) are not long enough to meaningfully restructure things Interesting. When was it sufficient, then? Intuitively you'd really expect a better pace of things now with much increased communication/transportation speeds and (in many places) reduced bureaucratic latency.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Intuitively you'd really expect a better pace of things now with much increased communication/transportation speeds and (in many places) reduced bureaucratic latency. That's on a first intuition though. Because another intuition is that things that needed adjusting/restructuring back in the day were simpler, less inter-connected, and with fewer implications if they didn't move as fast. When you have "increased communication/transportation speeds" then you also have faster impact of any breakage / bad decision (in the way e.g. that a software glitch can cost billions in a few hours, whereas an error in some accountant's book in 1960, not so much), but also that they are much more tangled together and complex. In other words: while you can communicate your intents of restructuring faster now, things are also much more complicated and difficult to understand even (much less restructure). In fact the summary above already points out to some of this: " A challenge of hypercoherent societies is that if there's a problem in one area, it creates a huge impact on the whole (ie. computer network outages)"
  - varjag 9y ago
    Right, I can see where this idea comes from. On the other hand, if we look at the things in factual terms, pretty huge (even by today standards) undertakings were done in the times of rolodex and rotary phone. Bloody combined arms wars were fought and won on several theatres simultaneously over the globe in less time than U.S. involvement in Iraq. People got sent to the the Moon on a relatively short notice. The 747, which is still one of the most complex planes around by 2017 standard, took 3 years from concept to the maiden flight. If we take any of the past achievements today, would you intuitively expect it to take longer nowadays? Take the 747 again: do increased friction, bugs in logistic software and Slack downtimes really offset productivity boost from model-based structural engineering CAD packages? So I see how this idea might come up at a lunch discussion, but kindof sceptical to taking it at face value.
JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
Thank you so much!
drewbuschhorn 9y ago
Coming from academia, one thing I've found is that if a man spends his life studying bees, he starts seeing secret "queens" in his own society. Like a lot of transposed cultural anthropology, this seems like a moral "just so" story. I don't question the archaeology, but I do question how generally applicable it is. Every successful society is the same, each dysfunctional one is dysfunctional in its own way.
- Ygg2 9y ago
  I don't know. I am not studying societal collapse, but it still seems like the world is going downhill.
  - johan_larson 9y ago
    Would you really rather live in your parents' or grandparents' time? I wouldn't. My grandparents lived through two or three shooting wars and a hard reconstruction. My parents lived through the Cold War, when the prospect of nuclear war was very real. By comparison, we are living in a very benign era. The 21st century is playing the game of life in easy mode.
  - stefs 9y ago
    people have believed this since the very beginning. even though, right now, we live in one of the most peaceful periods ever. world hunger has been drastically reduced. most people live safer lives than ever before (crime, health).

by slindz 9y ago

dboreham 9y ago

Ha! So Royalty was a good idea after all.

Retric 9y ago
Royalty tends to be a lot more stable than democracy's. However, while critically important it's also just one type of success. Interestingly, in less stable countries having a strong leader becomes preferred because of just how damaging chaos is.
- jabl 9y ago
  > Royalty tends to be a lot more stable than democracy's. Is it? I've thought that the big advantage of democracies is that when people get fed up with their leaders, they can change them without a bloody revolution or civil war (which, as you say, is incredibly damaging). I mean, our dear democratically(?) elected politicians say or do dumb things just like any inbred royalty, but at least we can switch them peacefully. Of course, democracies aren't immune and can fail too. E.g. Germany in the 1930's, or for that matter Turkey 2017.
  - Retric 9y ago
    US had a massive civil war, further only a fraction of democracy's evem last 100 years. Germany, France, Turkey, Russia, Iran, etc are all well known. But, look at South America or Africa and you see many countries hold elections, but not consistently over time. PS: The US scores relatively low on several measures of democracy. Relatively few house seats are competitive with many candidates unposed. D.C. has zero power in congress yet can't even run it's own budget. The president frequently loses the popular vote by huge margins. Is so something of a nominal democracy where without massive backlash the people have little say.
coldtea 9y ago
It might or might not have been, but that doesn't derive from anything in the summary above.
myth_drannon 9y ago
And you can do a survival analysis on different political regimes using a Lifelines library (Python)! http://lifelines.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Intro%20to%20lifelines.html http://lifelines.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Intro%20to%20lifel...

varjag 9y ago

> The terms of Presidents or CEO's (4-8 years) are not long enough to meaningfully restructure things Interesting. When was it sufficient, then? Intuitively you'd really expect a better pace of things now with much increased communication/transportation speeds and (in many places) reduced bureaucratic latency.

coldtea 9y ago
>Intuitively you'd really expect a better pace of things now with much increased communication/transportation speeds and (in many places) reduced bureaucratic latency. That's on a first intuition though. Because another intuition is that things that needed adjusting/restructuring back in the day were simpler, less inter-connected, and with fewer implications if they didn't move as fast. When you have "increased communication/transportation speeds" then you also have faster impact of any breakage / bad decision (in the way e.g. that a software glitch can cost billions in a few hours, whereas an error in some accountant's book in 1960, not so much), but also that they are much more tangled together and complex. In other words: while you can communicate your intents of restructuring faster now, things are also much more complicated and difficult to understand even (much less restructure). In fact the summary above already points out to some of this: " A challenge of hypercoherent societies is that if there's a problem in one area, it creates a huge impact on the whole (ie. computer network outages)"
- varjag 9y ago
  Right, I can see where this idea comes from. On the other hand, if we look at the things in factual terms, pretty huge (even by today standards) undertakings were done in the times of rolodex and rotary phone. Bloody combined arms wars were fought and won on several theatres simultaneously over the globe in less time than U.S. involvement in Iraq. People got sent to the the Moon on a relatively short notice. The 747, which is still one of the most complex planes around by 2017 standard, took 3 years from concept to the maiden flight. If we take any of the past achievements today, would you intuitively expect it to take longer nowadays? Take the 747 again: do increased friction, bugs in logistic software and Slack downtimes really offset productivity boost from model-based structural engineering CAD packages? So I see how this idea might come up at a lunch discussion, but kindof sceptical to taking it at face value.

JohnJamesRambo 9y ago

Thank you so much!

drewbuschhorn 9y ago

Coming from academia, one thing I've found is that if a man spends his life studying bees, he starts seeing secret "queens" in his own society. Like a lot of transposed cultural anthropology, this seems like a moral "just so" story. I don't question the archaeology, but I do question how generally applicable it is. Every successful society is the same, each dysfunctional one is dysfunctional in its own way.

Ygg2 9y ago
I don't know. I am not studying societal collapse, but it still seems like the world is going downhill.
- johan_larson 9y ago
  Would you really rather live in your parents' or grandparents' time? I wouldn't. My grandparents lived through two or three shooting wars and a hard reconstruction. My parents lived through the Cold War, when the prospect of nuclear war was very real. By comparison, we are living in a very benign era. The 21st century is playing the game of life in easy mode.
- stefs 9y ago
  people have believed this since the very beginning. even though, right now, we live in one of the most peaceful periods ever. world hunger has been drastically reduced. most people live safer lives than ever before (crime, health).