People are quantifiable in terms of energy. A person intakes energy in the form of food. This chemical energy is turned into heat energy. The brain uses electrical energy to control numerous bodily functions. The vocal cords use energy to vibrate, creating sound energy. This energy transfers through a medium, typically air, and reaches another person. That person absorbs this energy through their ear, which translates it into electrical energy to be sent to the brain. Everything a human is and does is a function of energy. As such, it is not a large stretch to say that human societies are characterized the same way: by the throughput of energy. It is the ways this energy is obtained, the uses it is put towards, and the amount of energy involved that determines the various features of a given society.

The sources of this energy are numerous. The most basic of these sources is the chemical energy involved in food. This is the energy that is utilized in lifting a book, knifing a man, and the creation of a sonnet. As an extension of this energy humans also utilize the energy of other animals. This is the same food energy that humans use (although usually from a different source), but rather than humans performing the work it is a horse, a mule, a donkey, an ox, etc. Wood is another form of this same chemical energy. Wood is burned, which releases heat that can be used to cook food, heat metal, harden clay, etc. Other forms of energy often utilized are wind, water, and solar energy. Windmills make mills more productive than human or animal power alone. Water energy is often utilized through waterwheels as mills, to assist metalworkers, or to generate electricity. Solar energy can be used to cook, dry, and generate electricity. There is even a story of uncertain validity that has a Greek army using focusing mirrors to burn the black sails of their attackers.

Fossil fuels are another way of obtaining energy. Ultimately fossil fuels are of the same chemical energy as food, but much denser and considerably older. Coal, oil, and natural gas are used in a variety of ways to obtain a great amount of energy. All are often burned to generate electricity or heat. Oil and natural gas are often combusted to generate sufficient mechanical energy to move vehicles. And oil is often turned into fertilizer, a form of chemical energy that plants then utilize. The plants are then eaten granting food energy for humans and our work animals.

The sum of all sources of energy available to a society is equal to the total amount of energy that society is capable of applying. Societies use this energy for expansion, communication, networking, innovation, etc. All of which is in turn limited by the amount of energy available to said society. So:

Where the sum of all energy that a society has access to is equal to the total sum of all of the individual sources of energy.

From a physics standpoint, there is only one use energy can be put towards: work. However, the kinds and applications of this work vary greatly. All societies use energy to maintain themselves. All use energy to fund their investment in complexity. Among civilized cultures these energy needs are very great. Agriculture requires an unusually large investment in energy. So large that if the return was not so vital it would be the worst investment in the market. It is an investment that absolutely guarantees that more energy has to be put into it than can be gotten out. This investment creates a deficit, which can only be overcome by expansion. And, since expansion cannot continue forever, it cannot be permanently overcome. In order to fuel this expansion, further energy must be applied in the form of warfare, organization, and trade. Each level of expansion must be maintained while the expansion continues. Essentially requiring ever increasing energy needs and an ever increasing rate of increase.

So we find ourselves with this situation:

Where the new total energy available to a society (for innovation, artistic endeavors, etc) is equal to the sum of all the energy sources available to that society minus the quantity of the energy needed for maintenance and expansion.

Forager societies require much less energy. Because such societies obtain their food energy through foraging they remain in a dynamic equilibrium with their environment. As such, their maintenance costs remain stable. The only increase in energy needs would be through a voluntary increase in complexity. As opposed to the mandatary increases in civilized societies. This increase in complexity can take many forms including organization, technology, resource production, and communication. However, whatever form it takes, it requires a greater investment in energy. An investment to create the new level of complexity and a further investment to maintain it. This energy can be obtained in many places and ways. But, only if the energy source utilized is agriculture does a civilization necessarily begin to form.

And so in forager societies we have a different equation for the energy available for such endeavors:

Since a forager society is always in equilibrium with the surrounding environment, there is no necessary initial energy investment for expansion.

Horticultural societies may be a balance, so long as they remain below the point of diminishing returns. Permaculture, for instance, can increase the amount of energy available to a society by increasing the amount of edible plant life in the immediate vicinity. But it cannot instigate a positive feedback loop like that required to form a civilization. This is because permaculture does not allow for massive harvesting, mono-cropping is anathema to permaculture, and permaculture does not degrade the soil, which would otherwise reduce future harvests without the use of fertilizer or expansion. However, a greater amount of energy would still be available to the society in question, and without the need to invest that energy in expansion it can be applied to a myriad of other purposes, such as technology.

Technology has an interesting relationship with energy. Technology is a function of energy. The more energy you have the more you can invest in technology and the more technology you can have. Alternatively, technology also helps you leverage more work out of your energy investment. The simplest tools take the least amount of energy to develop and offer the greatest return. A lever is very easy to develop, and, despite millennia of motivation, we have yet to develop a more efficient tool. However, the most advanced technologies take tremendous amounts of energy, and offer comparatively little in return. A car takes a tremendous amount of energy. When we add the development costs, the costs of finding, drilling, and refining the fuel, of making the roads, etc. One must wonder if it would have been more cost effective to simply allow people to work at home. So we see the diminishing returns of technology. You can invest energy into technology, and, up to a certain point, you will get a positive return on the investment. This means that an energy investment into technology results in a long-term net increase in the amount of energy a society can leverage. But, at a certain point, the investment has a negative return. As I said, technology has an interesting relationship with energy.

But, this opens the question to sources of energy. After all, it takes some energy to obtain that technology. And, in turn, that technology allows a culture to do more work for the energy invested. So the equations above are not yet complete:

Here we see the sum of the energy available to a given society for artistic, intellectual, and other endeavors being equal the sum of the energy available to a society minus the energy required for maintenance, expansion, and to obtain that energy times an efficiency rating based on the society’s technology. Among civilized societies maintenance and expansion investments are very high, as well as the amount of energy it takes to obtain that energy. As it was discussed before, obtaining food costs civilization more than it is worth. These represent the cost of maintaining civilization. Civilizations technology efficiency rating is also high, but not so much as to make up for it. Among forager societies, there is no maintenance or expansion costs, and the cost of obtaining food is very low. However, the efficiency rating the technology gives is also lower among forager tribes. Horticulturists vary depending on the style of horticulture involved.

Leslie White dealt with some of these issues. He was among the first to put forth the idea that the level of a given society’s development was a function of the energy available to that society. He further included technology into his equation. Unlike techno-salvationists, he stops short of proffering technology as a panacea, although his work has been used to defend such positions. These positions are only tenable when the diminishing returns of technological innovation is ignored. With this added understanding, the self-evident fact remains: no system based on perpetual growth can survive indefinitely in a finite universe. This statement is logically undeniable. Scientifically validated. And is common sense. This statement can be further limited with the additional rejoinder that the amount of energy in the universe is less relevant than the amount of energy available to a society. The fact that Jupiter has enough hydrogen to power fusion reactors for millennia is irrelevant if a society does not have fusion reactors or access to Jupiter.

Over time, both the maintenance and expansion costs increase as civilization continues to expand indefinitely, we can calculate the total amount of energy a civilization will consume over the full course of it’s existence:

Which is the integral of the energy needed to maintain for year t plus the energy needed to expand for year t from the beginning of that civilization (t=0) to the end of that civilization (t=f).

And so we now see societies as a mechanism for groups of people to direct energy to affect the world around them. Societies obtain energy, and use that energy for maintenance, expansion, and the exchange of information. Between primitive peoples and civilization the difference is clear and two-fold. Civilization has more energy than primitive peoples, and directs it primarily towards its own expansion. Primitive peoples have much less energy, but can direct it as they please. Often times this energy is directed almost completely towards the exchange of information. This exchange is often through the mediums of song, art, story, and technology.

This is not to say that civilized cultures do not communicate, or that they do not expend energy on communication. In fact, civilized cultures tend to expend much more energy on communication than primitive cultures, if only due to the greater distances through which they have to communicate. In addition, there is the issue of their being so many more people that need to communicate and be communicated with. Also, in civilization, communication is subordinate to expansion. Indeed, most of the energy expended in communication is to that end, by way of proselytizing their way of life, the creation and use of communication technologies, or the usual messages of governance.

All societies communicate. It is a requirement of their cooperation and a part of their culture. This communication is, naturally, also a function of energy. This would seem to indicate that the more energy you have the more you can communicate, and this is true. But, in civilization, as we have previously seen, most of this communication is very specifically geared towards expansion and the maintenance of that expansion. With that in mind it becomes harder to determine if civilized or primitive cultures have a higher quality of communication than simply a more equals better stance.

When treating communication as a function of energy, language becomes a technology. It can increase the efficiency of that communication. And, naturally, this communication involves exchanges of energy. In this way the society becomes a nexus of energy exchanges, and participation with that society adds energy to the whole nexus. Through this nexus information, ideas, and thoughts are distributed, considered, and analyzed.

This nexus can be understood in terms of a network. A network is collection of nodes, each node representing either a person or group of people, and the way these nodes interact with each other. In a primitive society this nexus takes the form of a peer-to-peer network. All information is distributed to every person. Also, any conclusion from an analysis is distributed.

In civilization, information is limited. The network is a hierarchy of nodes. Information that enters the system has to move up the hierarchy until it reaches someone who can make a decision and redistribute it towards someone who can analyze it. This takes longer, and the analysis is less inclusive of new data than in a primitive network. After all, any new data would follow the same or a similar path as the original data. So, while the energy expended is greater in civilization, the technology involved (in this case, the network used) leverages it differently. In primitive societies, the peer-to-peer technology is designed to efficiently transfer information and analyze it. In civilized societies, the hierarchal network is designed to incorporate and control as many people’s energies as is possible, often at the expense of communication.

All networks are designed to facilitate the handling of the nodes in the network. In a peer-to-peer network everyone is equal and has a direct connection to everyone else. This greatly facilitates communication and analysis. After all, the analysis can be done faster, simultaneously among all of the nodes, which can continually share data and solutions amongst themselves. However, this network has a limitation in the number of nodes that can be supported. This limitation is in the amount of energy needed to maintain a connection to X number of independent nodes as independent nodes. For humans, this number is reached at approximately 150. The specific value depends on the specific situation and the energy available, coupled with the technology to leverage it. Hierarchal networks can incorporate a great number of people, but only at the detriment of communication efficiency. This detriment comes from limiting the number of connections to each node and the direction in which certain kinds of information can flow. For instance, while humans are still subject to the rule of 150, this is often overcome by the application of a technology that allows a person to deal with greater numbers of people as one person: stereotyping. Instead of dealing with three hundred million people in the United States, we deal with “hicks,” “city slickers,” “the homeless,” “the poor,” “the rich,” “the man,” etc. This greatly increases the number of people that can be effectively dealt with, but only at the cost of communication. Every technology has a similar trade off, after all energy cannot be created or destroyed. A lever can move things more easily, but not as far. And so, a hierarchal network can obtain and apply a great deal more energy than a peer-to-peer network, but at the cost of communication.