I listened to a podcast with Joseph Tainter, and at the time Tainter was pointing to societal collapse occurring when the cost of administration was too high (t

I listened to a podcast with Joseph Tainter, and at the time Tainter was pointing to societal collapse occurring when the cost of administration was too high (too many elites and not enough incoming resources and energy to pay for a bloated administration). He argued that the breaking point was something like 2:1 and could be thought of as energy return on investment (EROI). At the time it gave me reason to believe that we could be hopeful for the future as the EROI of renewables was already above 8:1 on PV [1] and even higher for Wind. So hopefully we can build a sustainable society on renewables. https://omegataupodcast.net/184-societal-complexity-and-collapse/ https://omegataupodcast.net/184-societal-complexity-and-coll... Guest: Joseph Tainter Host: Markus Voelter > Joseph Tainter, our guest in this episode, is an anthropologist and historian. In 1988 he wrote a book called The Collapse of Complex Societies in which he argues that societies inevitably increase their inherent complexity, and, if and when the complexity becomes too “expensive” (diminishing returns), a society will collapse. In this episode, Joe explains his rationale and provides historic examples for collapse. We then discuss his theory relative today’s world, concluding with a not alltogether positive outlook. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment#Photovoltaic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment#Ph...