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This is incorrect, societies have collapsed regularly throughout history. A collapse doesn't have to be a total destruction of the society, it's most often a fa

This is incorrect, societies have collapsed regularly throughout history. A collapse doesn't have to be a total destruction of the society, it's most often a fast transition to a lower level of social complexity. One of my favorite books (and a book referenced by the link above) is "The Collapse of Complex Societies" by Joseph A Tainter, he gives a great study on the nature of collapse with lots of examples (note, some of the examples are a little dated and dubious like the Ik). He also gave a few presentations on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0R09YzyuCI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0R09YzyuCI

nickbauman 12y ago
A society is a way of life that has a broadly-stroked narrative everyone shares. It's not a geography or civil engineering artifacts. When that narrative stops working, some perish but generally the people don't just evaporate, they leave.
- faizshah 12y ago
  With such a broad definition of a society you would not classify as a collapse what Tainter classifies as a collapse: a fast loss of social complexity. Additionally your definition might be better as a definition of culture rather than society.
  - nickbauman 12y ago
    Completely agree. Tainter's definition of society is deeply biased to the one he currently inhabits as being perforce "better" (the title having the word "complex" in it is a dead giveaway). This is a superstition. I'd argue that a society that is actually better is not necessarily at all a more complex one. It is the one that reacts more favorably to change.
restalis 12y ago
I've watched this presentation. Unfortunately, I can't say I've found all of it enlightening or at least useful. For one thing, there were important omissions, like inventions/development in agriculture or communication technology that caused an explosion in resources/means available (which were to stay), whereas Mr. Tainter assumes resources to be limited and declining. Other than the omissions there are just wrong assumptions or metrics. The best example in this regard is US patents that he takes as an indicator of research and development and points that the costs got higher because patents are submitted by (costly) groups. Nowadays not only patents are submitted in groups, but also paperworks, and this is partly political (i.e. an artificial induced phenomenon). And patents become hardly a metric of invention or development, as a lot of us may acknowledge (reference to patent trolling), but for some reason in Mr. Tainter's dissemination this is again overlooked. I'm not saying Mr. Tainter's work is worthless, it's just that I see it not that solid to consider it as a foundation to build upon.
- faizshah 12y ago
  I found the book thought provoking and compelling. I wouldn't take what Dr. Tainter says as fact, like one would for a Math textbook, it's an argument (an opinion) which he defends in his book. His book is mainly about the first half of his presentation, not the second half that relates to the modern world. I would suggest you read the book if you liked the first half of the presentation.
  - restalis 12y ago
    Thanks for suggestion. Although I (clearly) have my retentions about his theories, I've already (book)marked both the presentation for future reference and his other related works for future reading.

nickbauman 12y ago

A society is a way of life that has a broadly-stroked narrative everyone shares. It's not a geography or civil engineering artifacts. When that narrative stops working, some perish but generally the people don't just evaporate, they leave.

faizshah 12y ago
With such a broad definition of a society you would not classify as a collapse what Tainter classifies as a collapse: a fast loss of social complexity. Additionally your definition might be better as a definition of culture rather than society.
- nickbauman 12y ago
  Completely agree. Tainter's definition of society is deeply biased to the one he currently inhabits as being perforce "better" (the title having the word "complex" in it is a dead giveaway). This is a superstition. I'd argue that a society that is actually better is not necessarily at all a more complex one. It is the one that reacts more favorably to change.

restalis 12y ago

I've watched this presentation. Unfortunately, I can't say I've found all of it enlightening or at least useful. For one thing, there were important omissions, like inventions/development in agriculture or communication technology that caused an explosion in resources/means available (which were to stay), whereas Mr. Tainter assumes resources to be limited and declining. Other than the omissions there are just wrong assumptions or metrics. The best example in this regard is US patents that he takes as an indicator of research and development and points that the costs got higher because patents are submitted by (costly) groups. Nowadays not only patents are submitted in groups, but also paperworks, and this is partly political (i.e. an artificial induced phenomenon). And patents become hardly a metric of invention or development, as a lot of us may acknowledge (reference to patent trolling), but for some reason in Mr. Tainter's dissemination this is again overlooked. I'm not saying Mr. Tainter's work is worthless, it's just that I see it not that solid to consider it as a foundation to build upon.

faizshah 12y ago
I found the book thought provoking and compelling. I wouldn't take what Dr. Tainter says as fact, like one would for a Math textbook, it's an argument (an opinion) which he defends in his book. His book is mainly about the first half of his presentation, not the second half that relates to the modern world. I would suggest you read the book if you liked the first half of the presentation.
- restalis 12y ago
  Thanks for suggestion. Although I (clearly) have my retentions about his theories, I've already (book)marked both the presentation for future reference and his other related works for future reading.