Social collapse best practices

[JohnyCanuck]

by Dmitry Orlov

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for showing up. It's certainly nice to travel all the way across the North American continent and have a few people come to see you, even if the occasion isn't a happy one. You are here to listen to me talk about social collapse and the various ways we can avoid screwing that up along with everything else that's gone wrong. I know it's a lot to ask of you, because why wouldn't you instead want to go and eat, drink, and be merry? Well, perhaps there will still be time left for that after my talk.

SNIP

You might ask yourself, then, Why on earth did he get invited to speak here tonight? It seems that I am enjoying my moment in the limelight, because I am one of the very few people who several years ago unequivocally predicted the demise of the United States as a global superpower. The idea that the USA will go the way of the USSR seemed preposterous at the time. It doesn't seem so preposterous any more. I take it some of you are still hedging your bets. How is that hedge fund doing, by the way?

I think I prefer remaining just a tourist, because I have learned from experience – luckily, from other people's experience – that being a superpower collapse predictor is not a good career choice. I learned that by observing what happened to the people who successfully predicted the collapse of the USSR. Do you know who Andrei Amalrik is? See, my point exactly. He successfully predicted the collapse of the USSR. He was off by just half a decade. That was another valuable lesson for me, which is why I will not give you an exact date when USA will turn into FUSA ("F" is for "Former"). But even if someone could choreograph the whole event, it still wouldn't make for much of a career, because once it all starts falling apart, people have far more important things to attend to than marveling at the wonderful predictive abilities of some Cassandra-like person.

SNIP

By the mid-1990s I started to see Soviet/American Superpowerdom as a sort of disease that strives for world dominance but in effect eviscerates its host country, eventually leaving behind an empty shell: an impoverished population, an economy in ruins, a legacy of social problems, and a tremendous burden of debt. The symmetries between the two global superpowers were then already too numerous to mention, and they have been growing more obvious ever since.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/48082

[Deja Q]

1. More doom and gloom profiteering. Can't he pay to get a giant zipper sewn into his mouth?

Another Russian 'professor' decided the USA would fall apart in 2010:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

:boring:

Self-fulfilling prophecy except he wants it to be bestown everywhere else (e.g. the US). He can be as gloomy as he wants. Most civilized people want to move forward. They can whine on their own.

[Karenina]

2. Thank You for that link!

[Igel]

3. Amal'rik was very specific not just in his year--

"Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?"--but also in his reasoning. The reasons were economic, political, and social, and he argued that given how things were set up there was no possible mechanism for change sufficient to avoid the problems' getting worse and worse. Instead the trends were set not by "momentum" but because of how the system was structured--the only rewards possible were for maintaining the structure--and because it was in a feedback loop. Gaidar would be proud.

Gorbachev tried to fix some things and found the structure simply didn't reward his attempts at reinvigorating the system.

Amal'rik's little volume was the first book I read in Russian, in '77 or '78. It did not make me popular.

[JohnyCanuck]

4. The Complexity Theory

By Ray Grigg, Special to Courier-Islander

A discernible change is taking place in the forum of environmental awareness. As the subject matures and our insights deepen, specific concerns are now accompanied by a general uneasiness as leading philosophers and scientists begin to examine the structure of our modern civilization and question its viability. One of these new avenues of consideration is Complexity Theory.

Complexity Theory argues that societies become progressively more unstable and vulnerable as the network of interconnections within them increases -- not particularly good news for a globalizing system in which increasing complexity is precisely the thrust of economics, finance, manufacturing, technology and almost everything else we do. The sobering implications may explain why many proponents of Complexity Theory preface their comments with an apology. "We don't want to tell you this," goes the essence of their message, "but we think you should know." When the New Scientist published two articles on Complexity Theory (Apr. 5/08), its editor anticipated some reader discomfort. "We are predisposed to pay attention to bad news," noted the editorial. "There is a good reason for this. We need to be warned of difficulty and danger so we can protect ourselves.... if the warning is too scary or distressing, we attack the messenger as a doom monger." (emphasis added /JC)

Complexity Theory comes with its hint of doom, ominously reminding us that no civilization has ever survived the stresses of history, with the possible exception of China and Byzantium -- in a much reduced state for 450 years following the 15th century Arab invasions. But Sumer, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Maya and even Rome all collapsed, primarily because they succumbed to overwhelming complexities.

Joseph Tainter, writing in The Collapse of Complex Societies, explains why. "For the past 10,000 years, problem solving has produced increasing complexity in human societies" (Ibid.). Food production is a classical example. Each time people find the solution to a food shortage -- irrigation, fertilizer or plants with higher yields-- the population rises to meet the food supply and the next problem to solve is more complicated and challenging. Every solution adds extra levels of organization, complexity and interdependence, which adds inefficiency and diminishing returns for the total amount of energy expended.

snip

Complexity Theory is an uncomfortable subject, particularly given the unsettling stresses we are measuring in food production, climate change, resource depletion, ecosystem damage, pollution and population growth. But the theory has its saving graces. It does make us more aware of our vulnerabilities. And it does argue for simplification and local self-sufficiency, particularly for essentials such as food supply and energy production. The incentive to begin thinking and acting with foresight should compensate for the need to be apologetic.

http://www.canada.com/Complexity+Theory/1286263/story.html

[bertman]

5. Depressing but interesting read, Johnny.