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Size automatically required large amounts of social complexity in the days of Rome, especially if you measure complexity in the actual cost it took to hold Rome

Size automatically required large amounts of social complexity in the days of Rome, especially if you measure complexity in the actual cost it took to hold Rome together. I'll remind you that the contemporaneous Chinese Han dynasty also evolved into a large militarized, centralized bureaucratic state despite the wide differences in geography and developmental path, and faced very similar problems of replacing conscripts with professional soldiers and then keeping them loyal. What forced them to have similar organization was their sheer size and the organizational pressures this caused.

Nomentatus 9y ago
But I started with a profound example of the reverse. Cost is size, not complexity. There were considerable savings due to scale in Rome, including assembly lines for manufacturing amphora, etc. Re China you give another example of size creating simplicity and standardization. In contrast to your first paragraph.
- smallnamespace 9y ago
  > Cost is size, not complexity. You're narrowly defining 'complexity' as only 'complexity of procedure' and completely ignoring social complexity and specialization. How about you justify why only the single measure of 'complexity' is sufficient for our discussion? A few direct responses to your example: 1. Standardization may save costs overall, but they represent a form of social complexity (you now have specialized bureaucrats and administrators to determine standards and communicate with troops, weapons must move a long way to supply every legion, training is now done in a centralized fashion) 2. This social complexity adds fragility to the system—if your army depends on having standardized gear to function properly, and barbarians capture your centralized workshops, then all of a sudden you lose the ability to equip the troops effectively; barbarians don't have that problem 3. It's not even clear that standardization saves overall costs here; it may save administrative cost at the Imperial level (it's easier to manage and train troops if they are interchangeable) but incur large hidden costs at the local level; in other words standardization may be an externalization of administrative problems onto the provinces. A direct example would be: if you force all the troops to use standard gear, they might fight worse than if they used weapons that were specialized for dealing with local enemies; also now your troops have a huge delay in being equipped from a central armory, and may end up pay out of their own pockets for local wares just to survive. Anyone who has sat through multiple re-orgs at a large corporation will understand that what is 'simple' for the administrator (let's make the org chart simple and clear!) may actually cause tons of hidden additional complexity at the bottom layers, so that total complexity has risen even though things look 'simpler' at one particular level.
  - Nomentatus 9y ago
    Lots of strenuous agreeing with me (vs the article) here, if you actually read what I've said, along with hypothetical tangents that may be worth thinking about but don't belong in a reply to me. Much of this I've addressed, see complex for the pilot, simpler plane. Many distinctions can be made, but less-organized societies have no shortage of complexity and variety (the armies the Romans met in Gaul had enormous variety in equipage, and thanks to little training, all too much variety in the responses of soldiers in battle.) The (Western) Romans didn't go down due to complexity, and Gibbon can't be cited for that claim, as was done. The standardization of Roman shields allowed them to pack together and shield soldiers better, their uniformity was not a "liability".
    - smallnamespace 9y ago
      It's a liability if the costs of the costs of the standardization exceed the real returns, a point which you have 'strenuously' ignored while pretending to push the burden proof back to me. Sure, in a vacuum anything can be seen as 'complexity', but if you actual measure the costs of doing complicated things in late Roman times then it's clear why their system fell apart while the Germans' largely didn't, despite the Romans having more territory and population to start with, and the key is to see that the late Roman system was horribly inefficient, even after taking standardization into account. I've made a detailed case for my views. Where's yours? Otherwise you will never come to any real conclusions, since every society will look more complex from a particular perspective, so none can be fruitfully compared to another. Or you would end up with ridiculous conclusions like modern society is simpler than hunter gatherer societies, because we have uniform driving laws and a global data routing protocol while they don't.
      - Nomentatus 9y ago
        I'm not ignoring perverse standardization as a possibility, but c'mon there's no shortage of additional details that can be added, tangents, exceptions to exceptions, etc. But I'd be more interested if your points were specific historical instances and sourced, not hypotheticals (which we all acknowledge as logically possible.) I've cited a source, and a specific historical instance, have you? PS - the German "system" fell apart many times, populations swapped, etc. The area was always a problem, no one empire or monarchy there was a constant problem.

Nomentatus 9y ago

But I started with a profound example of the reverse. Cost is size, not complexity. There were considerable savings due to scale in Rome, including assembly lines for manufacturing amphora, etc. Re China you give another example of size creating simplicity and standardization. In contrast to your first paragraph.

smallnamespace 9y ago
> Cost is size, not complexity. You're narrowly defining 'complexity' as only 'complexity of procedure' and completely ignoring social complexity and specialization. How about you justify why only the single measure of 'complexity' is sufficient for our discussion? A few direct responses to your example: 1. Standardization may save costs overall, but they represent a form of social complexity (you now have specialized bureaucrats and administrators to determine standards and communicate with troops, weapons must move a long way to supply every legion, training is now done in a centralized fashion) 2. This social complexity adds fragility to the system—if your army depends on having standardized gear to function properly, and barbarians capture your centralized workshops, then all of a sudden you lose the ability to equip the troops effectively; barbarians don't have that problem 3. It's not even clear that standardization saves overall costs here; it may save administrative cost at the Imperial level (it's easier to manage and train troops if they are interchangeable) but incur large hidden costs at the local level; in other words standardization may be an externalization of administrative problems onto the provinces. A direct example would be: if you force all the troops to use standard gear, they might fight worse than if they used weapons that were specialized for dealing with local enemies; also now your troops have a huge delay in being equipped from a central armory, and may end up pay out of their own pockets for local wares just to survive. Anyone who has sat through multiple re-orgs at a large corporation will understand that what is 'simple' for the administrator (let's make the org chart simple and clear!) may actually cause tons of hidden additional complexity at the bottom layers, so that total complexity has risen even though things look 'simpler' at one particular level.
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  Lots of strenuous agreeing with me (vs the article) here, if you actually read what I've said, along with hypothetical tangents that may be worth thinking about but don't belong in a reply to me. Much of this I've addressed, see complex for the pilot, simpler plane. Many distinctions can be made, but less-organized societies have no shortage of complexity and variety (the armies the Romans met in Gaul had enormous variety in equipage, and thanks to little training, all too much variety in the responses of soldiers in battle.) The (Western) Romans didn't go down due to complexity, and Gibbon can't be cited for that claim, as was done. The standardization of Roman shields allowed them to pack together and shield soldiers better, their uniformity was not a "liability".
  - smallnamespace 9y ago
    It's a liability if the costs of the costs of the standardization exceed the real returns, a point which you have 'strenuously' ignored while pretending to push the burden proof back to me. Sure, in a vacuum anything can be seen as 'complexity', but if you actual measure the costs of doing complicated things in late Roman times then it's clear why their system fell apart while the Germans' largely didn't, despite the Romans having more territory and population to start with, and the key is to see that the late Roman system was horribly inefficient, even after taking standardization into account. I've made a detailed case for my views. Where's yours? Otherwise you will never come to any real conclusions, since every society will look more complex from a particular perspective, so none can be fruitfully compared to another. Or you would end up with ridiculous conclusions like modern society is simpler than hunter gatherer societies, because we have uniform driving laws and a global data routing protocol while they don't.
    - Nomentatus 9y ago
      I'm not ignoring perverse standardization as a possibility, but c'mon there's no shortage of additional details that can be added, tangents, exceptions to exceptions, etc. But I'd be more interested if your points were specific historical instances and sourced, not hypotheticals (which we all acknowledge as logically possible.) I've cited a source, and a specific historical instance, have you? PS - the German "system" fell apart many times, populations swapped, etc. The area was always a problem, no one empire or monarchy there was a constant problem.