Comments on: Thesis #14: Complexity is subject to diminishing returns.

By: Online Used Bookstores

Online Used Bookstores — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:21:43 +0000

Online Used Bookstores…

The normal everyday person would feel that investing the time to score knowledge on this affair is a waste of time….

By: The Anthropik Network » Complexity & Elegance

The Anthropik Network » Complexity & Elegance — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:03:04 +0000

[…] offers the most widely-accepted view of why civilizations collapse in archaeological discussion; already summarized in greater detail elsewhere, for now, it is sufficient to recall that Tainter’s primary argument rests on the idea that […]

By: The Anthropik Network » Thesis #20: Collapse is an economizing process.

The Anthropik Network » Thesis #20: Collapse is an economizing process. — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:51:38 +0000

[…] feedback loop of ever more complexity (see thesis #13), leading inevitably to collapse (see thesis #14). Thus, the global collapse of such a system is its inevitable destiny. That destiny has been […]

By: The Anthropik Network » Thesis #16: Technology cannot stop collapse.

The Anthropik Network » Thesis #16: Technology cannot stop collapse. — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:48:16 +0000

[…] figure in economics. He helped formulate the very theory of marginal returns which, as we saw in thesis #14, governs complexity in general, and technological innovation specifically. In his 1865 book, The […]

By: locke

locke — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 19:17:04 +0000

Another example of
diminishing returns. I point this out because it appeared on Slashdot. One of
the last places you’d expect people to question our investment in complexity.

By: Jason Godesky

Jason Godesky — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 01:02:40 +0000

Locke posted a link to this, and I mistook it for spam:

By: “The Savages are Truly Noble” (The Anthropik Network)

“The Savages are Truly Noble” (The Anthropik Network) — Wed, 23 May 2007 17:50:32 +0000

[…] The silly notion of “purity” that could never work in a truly primitive life aside, this is largely true. Most of the great movements in history were essentially primitivists; Jesus, Martin Luther, and many, many others held essentially primitivist views, and sought to push back the overwhelming, dehumanizing complexity of civilization back. Today, we know that civilization is defined by its unhealthy relationship with complexity,46 and that complexity is subject to diminishing returns.47 In that pattern, civilization damns itself to collapse. Primitivism makes sense of that pattern, and offers hope for the future by throwing light on just how dehumanizing civilization is. […]

By: Basic Primtivism Refresher (The Anthropik Network)

Basic Primtivism Refresher (The Anthropik Network) — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 17:53:29 +0000

[…] This leads to Tainter’s central thesis, that complexity is subject to diminishing returns, and that it is this course of diminishing returns which is the ultimate cause of all collapse, regardless of the proximate cause. He reinforces his idea with examples of collapse from the archaeological record, as well as the modern Ik in Uganda. I have summarized his arguments in my own thesis #14. Tainter argues that collapse is an economizing process that happens when the alternative is no longer tolerable. But Tainter believes we cannot collapse, because we are enmeshed in a peer polity system. Of course, peer polity systems have collapsed before—see the Maya—but the only difference is, they do not collapse as individual states, but as a peer polity system. Either they all collapse at once, or no one does. In thesis #15, I break with Tainter by applying his own model to our current situation, and concluding that we are past the point of diminishing returns for our complexity—and thus, poised for collapse. […]

By: JCamasto

JCamasto — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 04:43:30 +0000

Couple of thoughts:

Though US energy per capita may have dropped - total energy has increased from 80 to 100 Quads (’79-’05). I’d guess that a lot of that addition energy is being extracted on the cheap - imbedded energy in the form of imported goods, labor and materials.

By: Jason Godesky

Jason Godesky — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:17:44 +0000

Well, first of all, diminishing returns doesn’t say anything about absolute production. Diminishing returns for complexity would still entail absolute increases in complexity, it simply means that the growth of complexity slows down, while the price of complexity goes up: you pay more, and you get less.

But dropping energy per capita is certainly interesting in its own right. It doesn’t say much about diminishing returns on complexity, but it does say a good bit about where we are now.