The Great Mental Models Volume 3: Systems and Mathematics by Rhiannon Beaubien & Rosie Leizrowice

Author:Rhiannon Beaubien & Rosie Leizrowice [Beaubien, Rhiannon & Leizrowice, Rosie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Latticework Publishing Inc.
Published: 2021-09-11T18:30:00+00:00

Diminishing Returns and Societal Collapse

Why do complex societies, like the Roman Empire, collapse? One theory, advanced by Joseph A. Tainter in The Collapse of Complex Societies, is that it comes down to diminishing returns. As societies grow and develop, they become more complex and require more and more “energy flow” to stay intact.1 With increasingly advanced networks between individuals, “more hierarchical controls are created to regulate these networks, more information is processed, there is more centralization of information flow, there is increasing need to support specialists not directly involved in resource production, and the like.” More complex societies extract an exponentially higher amount of energy from individuals just to stay intact than simple ones. At a certain point, the cost may exceed the benefits individuals derive from being part of that society. When this happens, it may begin to disintegrate.2 Being complex no longer carries benefits, and it makes sense to return to a simpler level of organization.

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