https://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html. The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter outlines a dynamic in which the advantages of adding complexity to a social / economic system are substantial at the beginning but as the returns from additional complexity diminish, the costs eventually outweigh any gains and the system decays.
The success of adding complexity is institutionalized by the status quo, which then clings to this strategy even as the returns on adding complexity become negative and thus destructive.
I call this "doing more of what's failed."
Other systems analysts (Donella Meadows et al.) have illuminated the nonlinear character of systemic transformations. Ugo Bardi calls this "The Seneca Cliff": systems which expanded slowly and steadily can decay and collapse quite suddenly and violently, surprising everyone who took the previous stability as permanent.
Systems follow their own rules, and so unlike politics, our opinions don't change the results.
All of these dynamics are (in my analysis) clearly visible in the global status quo. The rational conclusion is the risks of disruption, disorder and conflict as things decay and fall apart are relatively high.
While some trends and conflicts can last for decades (the Thirty Years War in Europe, the Cold War between the US and the USSR), diminishing returns on status quo "solutions" that no longer work as anticipated tend to unravel on the periphery which then spreads quickly to the core.
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Are people important only as data points? Important only as consumers? Important only in regards to the quantifiable scientific information of a living person? Hmm. Rene Dubos -is the human species becoming dehumanized by the condition of his environment? So Human an Animal is an attempt to address this broad concern, and explain why so little is being done to address this issue. 1968.
Yuval Harrari: 2018. Al Jazeera: In your view, what are the key challenges and threats we face right now and going forward?
Yuval Noah Harari: There are three big challenges facing humankind in the 21st century: nuclear war, climate change and technological disruption, especially the rise of AI and bio-engineering. This will change the world more than anything else.
Hopefully, we can prevent a nuclear war and climate change from happening. But technological disruption is bound to happen. We still have some choice about what kind of impact AI and bio-engineering will have on the world, but they will change the world, maybe more than anything that happened previously.
These are the main challenges. Anything else is a distraction.
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BAH! diminishing returns on status quo "solutions" that no longer work as anticipated tend to unravel on the periphery which then spreads quickly to the core.
The WEF, and our Global Managers are insane. Titanism. Peter Foster: Mark Carney, man of destiny, arises to revolutionize society. It won't be pleasant
What Carney ultimately wants is a technocratic dictatorship justified by climate alarmism
Wake up to find out you are the eyes of the world…
My view is about the flow of resources which this economic system relies on, these technologies must have to operate on a high level, that at some point in the decline of these resources, which clearly the WEF crowd aspires, the system simply collapses.
Not quite this simple but I like the analogy if a profit margin for a business with a large income statement is 1% and revenue drops 5%, without accounting manipulation, the profit is out of the business. The next year revenue drops 10%, cash flow doesn't cover all the costs, and its over.
Even though the business could continue to bring in cash, it still collapses.
Now superimpose the idea to the entire economy needing these resources, think oil foremost, even of there is plenty of oil left to extract, the flow isn't enough to cover what's needed - Seneca Cliff.
Thanks for the essay, the music and the links. Adding complexity, especially to already weak systems is inevitably going to be a slow motion train wreck.
https://youtu.be/XSYzDDlI3WA