From: Ed Weick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

>>There are no doubt many factors that determine whether civilizations
>>collapse slowly like Rome or quickly like the FSU and ex-Yugoslavia.   I
>>believe a large factor is ethnic homogeneity.  After all, our culture
>>demands that we find someone else to blame.  It's another positive
feedback
>>if the scapegoats are within our own borders.
>
>My point about Rome was that it never really collapsed.  Over the
centuries,
>it became transformed into civilizations which were no longer really Roman,

Tainter defines "collapse" as a "rapid transformation to a lower degree of
complexity, typically involving significantly less energy consumption
(Tainter 1988)".  This may or may not include widespread violence.  In fact
"collapse" could look a lot like the kind of society some people are
advocating.

Jay
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