Jay Hanson:
>Our "economicalpolitical" system is a positive-feedback system: corruption
>begats corruption, and power begats power until the system "bifurcates".
At
>that point, our "economicalpolitical" system MUST either leap to a higher
>level of order (increasing complexity) OR it will disintegrate into chaos.
>In other words, to survive these bifurcations our civilization must utilize
>ever-increasing amounts of energy.
I'm not sure of what you are mixing here, but I believe you are mixing
something. I agree that a growing system relying on finite energy must at
some point wind down. That is relatively simple and logical. However, I'm
not sure of what corruption and power have to do with it. I'm not sure that
they are necessary condition for "bifurcation" in human societies, nor am I
really sure that human societies must inevitably "bifurcate".
I read Tainter's paper on complexity. The thought that struck me when I
read it was that societies need not disintegrate nor become chaotic nor leap
to a higher plane, they can simply ossify, get stuck, and become capable of
only the most incremental progress. Eventually, but usually over a long
period of time, they become something else. Rome is a case in point. It
never really fell apart, but having absorbed all kinds of new influences,
having to accommodate all kinds of new points of view, it simply stopped
being the dynamic society that it was in the days of Julius and Augustus.
By the beginning of the 5th Century, it had split in two (though surely not
"bifurcated" in the sense that you intend), with the Eastern part becoming
influential in the development of the Balkans and eventually Russia, and the
western part fading into a Roman Catholic dominated Europe and eventually
providing the basis for the Holy Roman Empire.
I would suggest that a somewhat similar process is at work in the world of
today. Things were very easy during the 16th to 19th Centuries, especially
for the imperial powers. There were old and moribund societies to dominate
in Asia, slaves to take in Africa, and lands to colonize in the Americas.
But throughout this century, Asians have renewed themselves, Africans have
liberated themselves, and the Americas have become independent and powerful.
We are now at a stage of great and still growing complexity; with everything
pushing against everything else. And, as you have so frequently pointed
out, the bottom could fall out because the whole system relies on
non-renewable fossil fuels.
Because of this complexity induced "stuckness", I would foresee a long
decline, much like that of Rome, even if we did not run out of fossil fuels
or even if we could find suitable substitutes for them. There is simply no
slack in the global system now, and very little prospect of any for a long
time to come. Practically, this will mean an increase in skirmishes over
available resources, an impoverishment of large populations, probably large
scale migrations, and undoubtedly a decline in global population from a yet
to be reached peak.
Ed Weick
