Quite a frustrating interview as PR-B notes and difficult to square Tainter's admission of global collapse as the likely outcome with his expression of equanimity about the current state of affairs. In fairness, he does explain this as taking a much longer term view as an historian but it is probably his scientific - and consequently, unemotional and apparently uninvested - approach that grates.
The complexity issue makes sense - it does solve human problems, but also creates wealth but the link between these two things now seems ruptured. The law of diminishing returns as a causal factor in collapse also makes a lot of sense.
The bit that really hit home for me was your reference to your previous interview in which it was pointed out that more complex systems simplified the roles of population. This seems obvious when we consider ancient societies that used slave labour extensively but while fossil fuels have obviated the need to some extent it has by no means eliminated slavery but redefined it to allow those in power to enjoy a more expansive life. It is arguable that the continued acquisition of wealth traps those in power just as much in the hamster wheel.
All of which would seem to suggest that smaller communities would lead to simpler and richer lives, which I think was your point, Rachel, in describing your experience in different cultures.
To me that neo class society is unnecessary, but when people can get away, they can be intellectually lazy and will do so. It also creates complexity, maybe not in technical or structural terms, but eg when teenager asks, why is that nanny taking care of us kids but neighbor doesnt have nanny... and these questions will be endless and "burden" parents and adults with contradictions. But tech wont solve these. These emotional contradictions, or intellectual (conflict with how world should be or is taught in school, vs what it actually is) are more painful than actual technical complexity.
People with possibility strive for smaller communities. That often comes with price of doubling or tripling commute. But it can still be worth it to people who can then eg have pets and family there, that isnt possible in other place, downtown of very high density population.
Nice to see Tainter interviewed. His book was literally under my hand when I saw the Planet: Critical email this morning, as I'm working on a related manuscript myself. However, as has been clear in several of his previous talks, there is an underlying optimism or agnosticism about the current moment and future that some of us find odd (or frustrating). I think for very good reasons, most contemporary collapsologists tend to think "this time it's different" (e.g. permanently declining energy and other resources, global society rather than a local affair (i.e. non where to go), ecological/planetary limits overshot, reliance on fragile global supply chains, species extinctions, etc. etc.), so I was glad to see that you started to push him on some of this. He presents an absolutely vital part of the puzzle of collapse but squaring this with the other pieces (known and missing) and the present moment requires the work of many other thinkers too. However, diminishing returns on complexity invested alone is worth the price of entry (and diminishing rates of innovation is always a valuable point to make to techno-optimists). Thanks.
As a senior software engineer, I can completely agree with the analysis that as technological maintenance decreases in relevant returns, society begins to deteriorate.
However, this has little actual relevance to the technologies themselves but instead, how they are implemented in a society.
In the United States especially, business leaders have become as detached from societal realities as our political leadership has. In the US, technology is seen as a replacement for Human Beings, which then follows with the less than expected results.
Businesses and many other institutions (especially education) are rife with poor technology implementations that see our young increasingly rely on them as crutches for their daily lives. Instead of doing the required hard work that is part of every learning process, increasingly young students are allowed to offload such work to their devices. Now we have students in High School who literally cannot write or even read at the expected levels of their education, And many are so poor at mathematics that it is a wonder that any of them are even promoted into the tougher math courses offered in US High Schools.
Yet, this is just one example as to how ruinous technologies have become in the public sphere.
Instead of using technologies within the scope of expected contexts as tools, many now see them as the lifeblood of their lives, careers, and institutional entities.
Many of us in my profession have been warning people for years of the serious, detrimental negatives of such technological but to no avail. Now the consequences are being seen everywhere, which is a driving factor in the current decline in the United States.
However, technology alone cannot be held responsible for all of the US' ills. There is a lot of historical precedent for our nation's demise, which as one increasingly delves into our own histories, finds that it actually began with the creation of the US Constitution, which was implemented as such a compromised document that in reality, benefited very few, while promoting the agendas of the landed, White wealthy.
The result is that traditional, historical societies find the concepts of such a collapse as more relevant as presented here than those societies, like the United States and Israel (both settler, colonial societies), which have too many historical contradictions to sustain them unless such contradictions are confronted and dealt with. In neither case here, they weren't...
Steve Naidamast
Sr. Software Engineer / Military Historian Analyst
That sounds like what was crux in WW2: nazi army had superior tech in early days and well trained, well motivated crews. However soviets and allies could replace broken and destroyed equipment by numbers and had designed easy to use equipment, so fresh outta camp people could have chance to learn them on the go. We see this play out in ever aspect of society..... education takes too long, companies demand 20 year experiences and so on.
Sure it requires highly educated lot of experience person to manage supply chains but that is still boring and stressful office job and somewhat unnecessary. Not to mention downstream problems to life. As we see now in banks, they simply refuse any "competition" or reforms to they 50 year old tech, well as they can afford so blackmailing society. Few other companies can. These reforms tend to make things simpler but require lot of effort.
As a contrast to Tainter's approach and suggestions your audience deserves to hear Peter Turchin's perspective on the rise and fall of civilizations. For the past 30 years Turchin has been working to turn history into a proper science rather than a collection of just so stories. His work takes subjective opinion out of interpreting the rise and fall of civilizations and reveals the simple metrics that largely dictate how civilizations predictably rise and fall. Turchin would be a great on Planet Critical.
I am just reading Liquidate by Alf Hornborg. On page 145 he says:
"The pervasive loss of indigenous languages, traditional ecological knowledges,
and crafts – and their replacement with standardised outlooks and
practices geared to modern technology – is nothing less than a systematic
deskilling of most of humanity. We should recall that the much celebrated
technical, scientific, and artistic expertise of modern society is reserved for
a small minority of its population, while its overwhelming majority is compelled
to perform tasks that are very rarely conducive to creativity. Semiotic
freedom, in other words, is a matter of highly uneven global distribution.
Moreover, whatever expertise is encouraged in modernity tends to be dependent
on advanced technologies, which means that it is defined by those technologies
rather than by the inherent skill of a human being." That fits in quite well with your observation about simplification in complexity. Put Hornborg on your show Rachel.
You had to work hard in this one Rachel. The link between complexity and simplification of people should merit further exploration. I guess complexity at the same time makes things easier and simpler, AND more difficult. The link between complexity and inequality is also in some way related to this. Coincidentally, I did recently write about Tainter's view on collapse and that we could further develop this civilization with even more energy. https://gardenearth.substack.com/p/complexity-energy-people-and-inequality
Yes, this must have been a very frustrating interview for both of you. Lots of waffling is quite normal for many academics, but this was exceptionally disappointing from the man who literally wrote the book on society level collapse. He is knowledgeable of the contemporary collapse concerns, but won't speak to them. Sad.
I despise podcasts, and "talking heads" videos even more, so now that I know they are available I can at least read a transcript. You might put a link in your Substack lead for dinosaurs like me ... I'm approaching professor Tanier's age and many of my generation don't watch videos ...
The media sage Marshall McLuhan suggested thinking about the Object in the Field. If the Mayan civilization collapsed it's possible that the rest of the world, the field, wouldn't be affected or even know about it. But the Ecological Overshoot Unraveling as described in the landmark Overshoot by William R. Catton Jr. describes how the planetary field itself is collapsing. The easy resources have already been plundered and turned to waste. Now increased complexity becomes too expensive. This house of cards is coming down.
This man is not a deep thinker, researcher. Bases his research on his personal short term landscape. High school philosopher. Continuously references the Cold War? Would you call this “shallow-deep?” No just void.
He has a patronizing tone in his voice the betrays his comfortableness with being a wealthy white man. He does not seem to recognize the seriousness of our climate tipping points.
Quite a frustrating interview as PR-B notes and difficult to square Tainter's admission of global collapse as the likely outcome with his expression of equanimity about the current state of affairs. In fairness, he does explain this as taking a much longer term view as an historian but it is probably his scientific - and consequently, unemotional and apparently uninvested - approach that grates.
The complexity issue makes sense - it does solve human problems, but also creates wealth but the link between these two things now seems ruptured. The law of diminishing returns as a causal factor in collapse also makes a lot of sense.
The bit that really hit home for me was your reference to your previous interview in which it was pointed out that more complex systems simplified the roles of population. This seems obvious when we consider ancient societies that used slave labour extensively but while fossil fuels have obviated the need to some extent it has by no means eliminated slavery but redefined it to allow those in power to enjoy a more expansive life. It is arguable that the continued acquisition of wealth traps those in power just as much in the hamster wheel.
All of which would seem to suggest that smaller communities would lead to simpler and richer lives, which I think was your point, Rachel, in describing your experience in different cultures.
To me that neo class society is unnecessary, but when people can get away, they can be intellectually lazy and will do so. It also creates complexity, maybe not in technical or structural terms, but eg when teenager asks, why is that nanny taking care of us kids but neighbor doesnt have nanny... and these questions will be endless and "burden" parents and adults with contradictions. But tech wont solve these. These emotional contradictions, or intellectual (conflict with how world should be or is taught in school, vs what it actually is) are more painful than actual technical complexity.
People with possibility strive for smaller communities. That often comes with price of doubling or tripling commute. But it can still be worth it to people who can then eg have pets and family there, that isnt possible in other place, downtown of very high density population.
Nice to see Tainter interviewed. His book was literally under my hand when I saw the Planet: Critical email this morning, as I'm working on a related manuscript myself. However, as has been clear in several of his previous talks, there is an underlying optimism or agnosticism about the current moment and future that some of us find odd (or frustrating). I think for very good reasons, most contemporary collapsologists tend to think "this time it's different" (e.g. permanently declining energy and other resources, global society rather than a local affair (i.e. non where to go), ecological/planetary limits overshot, reliance on fragile global supply chains, species extinctions, etc. etc.), so I was glad to see that you started to push him on some of this. He presents an absolutely vital part of the puzzle of collapse but squaring this with the other pieces (known and missing) and the present moment requires the work of many other thinkers too. However, diminishing returns on complexity invested alone is worth the price of entry (and diminishing rates of innovation is always a valuable point to make to techno-optimists). Thanks.
As a senior software engineer, I can completely agree with the analysis that as technological maintenance decreases in relevant returns, society begins to deteriorate.
However, this has little actual relevance to the technologies themselves but instead, how they are implemented in a society.
In the United States especially, business leaders have become as detached from societal realities as our political leadership has. In the US, technology is seen as a replacement for Human Beings, which then follows with the less than expected results.
Businesses and many other institutions (especially education) are rife with poor technology implementations that see our young increasingly rely on them as crutches for their daily lives. Instead of doing the required hard work that is part of every learning process, increasingly young students are allowed to offload such work to their devices. Now we have students in High School who literally cannot write or even read at the expected levels of their education, And many are so poor at mathematics that it is a wonder that any of them are even promoted into the tougher math courses offered in US High Schools.
Yet, this is just one example as to how ruinous technologies have become in the public sphere.
Instead of using technologies within the scope of expected contexts as tools, many now see them as the lifeblood of their lives, careers, and institutional entities.
Many of us in my profession have been warning people for years of the serious, detrimental negatives of such technological but to no avail. Now the consequences are being seen everywhere, which is a driving factor in the current decline in the United States.
However, technology alone cannot be held responsible for all of the US' ills. There is a lot of historical precedent for our nation's demise, which as one increasingly delves into our own histories, finds that it actually began with the creation of the US Constitution, which was implemented as such a compromised document that in reality, benefited very few, while promoting the agendas of the landed, White wealthy.
The result is that traditional, historical societies find the concepts of such a collapse as more relevant as presented here than those societies, like the United States and Israel (both settler, colonial societies), which have too many historical contradictions to sustain them unless such contradictions are confronted and dealt with. In neither case here, they weren't...
Steve Naidamast
Sr. Software Engineer / Military Historian Analyst
That sounds like what was crux in WW2: nazi army had superior tech in early days and well trained, well motivated crews. However soviets and allies could replace broken and destroyed equipment by numbers and had designed easy to use equipment, so fresh outta camp people could have chance to learn them on the go. We see this play out in ever aspect of society..... education takes too long, companies demand 20 year experiences and so on.
Sure it requires highly educated lot of experience person to manage supply chains but that is still boring and stressful office job and somewhat unnecessary. Not to mention downstream problems to life. As we see now in banks, they simply refuse any "competition" or reforms to they 50 year old tech, well as they can afford so blackmailing society. Few other companies can. These reforms tend to make things simpler but require lot of effort.
As a contrast to Tainter's approach and suggestions your audience deserves to hear Peter Turchin's perspective on the rise and fall of civilizations. For the past 30 years Turchin has been working to turn history into a proper science rather than a collection of just so stories. His work takes subjective opinion out of interpreting the rise and fall of civilizations and reveals the simple metrics that largely dictate how civilizations predictably rise and fall. Turchin would be a great on Planet Critical.
Peter and I have been in contact! He's deep in research for a new book but I hope to have him on future.
I am just reading Liquidate by Alf Hornborg. On page 145 he says:
"The pervasive loss of indigenous languages, traditional ecological knowledges,
and crafts – and their replacement with standardised outlooks and
practices geared to modern technology – is nothing less than a systematic
deskilling of most of humanity. We should recall that the much celebrated
technical, scientific, and artistic expertise of modern society is reserved for
a small minority of its population, while its overwhelming majority is compelled
to perform tasks that are very rarely conducive to creativity. Semiotic
freedom, in other words, is a matter of highly uneven global distribution.
Moreover, whatever expertise is encouraged in modernity tends to be dependent
on advanced technologies, which means that it is defined by those technologies
rather than by the inherent skill of a human being." That fits in quite well with your observation about simplification in complexity. Put Hornborg on your show Rachel.
You had to work hard in this one Rachel. The link between complexity and simplification of people should merit further exploration. I guess complexity at the same time makes things easier and simpler, AND more difficult. The link between complexity and inequality is also in some way related to this. Coincidentally, I did recently write about Tainter's view on collapse and that we could further develop this civilization with even more energy. https://gardenearth.substack.com/p/complexity-energy-people-and-inequality
Yes, this must have been a very frustrating interview for both of you. Lots of waffling is quite normal for many academics, but this was exceptionally disappointing from the man who literally wrote the book on society level collapse. He is knowledgeable of the contemporary collapse concerns, but won't speak to them. Sad.
I at least learned one thing -
That there are transcripts available at planetcritical.com.
I despise podcasts, and "talking heads" videos even more, so now that I know they are available I can at least read a transcript. You might put a link in your Substack lead for dinosaurs like me ... I'm approaching professor Tanier's age and many of my generation don't watch videos ...
The media sage Marshall McLuhan suggested thinking about the Object in the Field. If the Mayan civilization collapsed it's possible that the rest of the world, the field, wouldn't be affected or even know about it. But the Ecological Overshoot Unraveling as described in the landmark Overshoot by William R. Catton Jr. describes how the planetary field itself is collapsing. The easy resources have already been plundered and turned to waste. Now increased complexity becomes too expensive. This house of cards is coming down.
Great episode. Thank you for sharing this conversation Rachel and Joseph.
This man is not a deep thinker, researcher. Bases his research on his personal short term landscape. High school philosopher. Continuously references the Cold War? Would you call this “shallow-deep?” No just void.
He has a patronizing tone in his voice the betrays his comfortableness with being a wealthy white man. He does not seem to recognize the seriousness of our climate tipping points.
He equates money with oil and visa versa. His beliefs then seem to cloud his perspective. Very linear, with an ego centric bearing.