
Odd Lots Podcast: Signs That a Civilization Is About to Collapse [audio] - rbanffy
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-21/odd-lots-here-are-the-signs-that-a-civilization-is-about-to-collapse?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
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shoo
Further reading:

Tainter -- "The Collapse of Complex Societies"

Diamond -- "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed"

Meadows et al -- "Limits to Growth"

edit: after listening to the podcast there is much in common with Tainter's
general argument. I'll paraphrase poorly: as civilisations become more complex
and interconnected, this makes them more efficient (e.g. economic
specialisation and trade). But the increased complexity also increases the
fragility of the system, and also adds ongoing maintenance costs. At some
point there is no marginal return for adding complexity, or the return on
maintaining the complexity becomes negative, so the complexity is no longer
worth maintaining. Collapse.

I did like the observation/claim that as civilisations encounter trouble, and
things start to go badly, they respond by continuing to do whatever they are
familiar with doing, but with increasing intensity.

~~~
jobigoud
Why don't societies fluctuate around an equilibrium of maximum complexity
maintainable?

Going overboard shouldn't mean collapse but readjustment by simplification.
Unless the entire system instantly rely on any newly introduced complexity at
a structural level?

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Simplification seems very difficult because entrenched interests benefit from
the complexity. Look at health care: it's not hard to imagine a vastly better
and cheaper system than the US has (indeed many other countries have it), but
even minor changes to health care will involve battling politically powerful
groups, and the political risk is extremely high. Same thing can be said about
the complexity of the tax code. There have even been HN articles recently
about how it's not hard to simplify the tax filing process, but Intuit and
other tax preparers lobbied against it and killed it.

~~~
dcosson
Re: tax code - there was a good planet money episode a few weeks ago [0] about
this. It argues that Intuit aren't nearly as big a player as conservative
groups who bizarrely view simplifying the tax code as akin to raising to
taxes.

[0]
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/episode-760-tax-
hero)

~~~
ethbro
Is that essentially why the Freedom Caucus torpedoed the ACA replacement? "We
don't believe this should even exist, therefore we will vote against measures
to move it closer but still short of our vision."

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616c
If you want to hear a classic take on this (granted from someone who will DL
this episode of the podcast but has not listened), the famous North African
philosopher Ibn Khaldoun went on at length about this in his ironically named
Introduction (al-Muqaddima) re weakening of metals used in coin based currency
(the US did this with nickel in nickels in the last 5 years IIRC) and other
heuristics he gathered as a vizier for many Arab kings of weak and sickly
states. He watched this pattern often in his day job as royal adviser.

It's not a light read but a solid look from one guy who believed in the
cyclical nature of order and society.

~~~
bigtimeidiot
> _the US did this with nickel in nickels in the last 5 years IIRC_

Using expensive precious metals in what are essentially symbolic tokens seems
like a waste, but that's just me.

~~~
_jal
I'm personally deeply amused by the tinfoil-hat goldbug ecommerce sites.

------
csomar
I disagree when it comes to this. I think the US government is the first
government in history that has a "Globalistic" tendency. Islam did actually
something similar (by conquering countries and integrating them into the
religion instead of putting them as Slave countries). If you think about it,
Islam is a Globalistic religion that wants (and assumes) everybody in the
planet earth must be under its radar and rules.

The march toward a globalized world is still in its infancy. The US just began
the operation; and I don't think a Trump presidency is going to change that
direction. In this case, the US is not collapsing but rather its era is just
beginning. Though the end result will be a US without an A.

~~~
ethbro
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire)

Also, Islam went through various phases during its expansion. In its most
lenient (and progressive) Abbasid era it was highly tolerant of other
religions coexisting in areas it controlled. You pay the tax, you can be a
Christian or whatever you want.

~~~
csomar
I might be wrong but if I remember accurately, Jew were tolerated (and
protected) in the prophet era when they pay the Tax.

This article might have more information:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_under_Musl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_under_Muslim_rule)

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throwaway13337
Save yourself the time and read one of the summaries here in the comments. The
interview meanders unclearly.

It's arguments are ones that could be applied to any time past the industrial
revolution. The whole thing is click bait.

I guess I shouldn't feel disappointed that the podcast doesn't make a good
argument for the imminent collapse of civilization, but I did feel kinda let
down for the lack of insight.

~~~
1_2__3
I often wonder what the comments on various sites looked like the day before
the 2008 crash. Or the dot com bust. It seems for every highly voted analysis
of how vulnerable we are there's a highly voted comment pooh-poohing it.

~~~
startupdiscuss
Yes, but the various sites were warning of the same thing in [beg of time...
2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006,... present]

It would be more impressive to find a source that did not predict doom during
the other years, and then did before '08, and then ceased to do so after '08.

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JohnJamesRambo
I wish this had a transcript.

~~~
slindz
It's a podcast with anthropologist from Vanderbilt, specializing in the
downfall of civilizations I would have also loved a summary, but my curiosity
was piqued enough to give it a listen.

Here are some hastily taken notes for anybody who wants a better gauge if the
time is worth it to them:

\- The strengths of a civilization are often the cause of the downfall

\- Western economies focus on over production of a small number of things,
then exchange for other goods

\- Counter movements aren't necessarily indicative of impending collapse

\- In the face of counter movements, leaders don't usually adjust strategy,
rather they intensify their existing strategies

\- This intensifications are usually always counterproductive

\- The terms of Presidents or CEO's (4-8 years) are not long enough to
meaningfully restructure things; this re-enforces the intensification
approach, leading to bubbles, leading to collapses

\- Common patterns of this intensification include shorter and shorter term
thinking

\- Hypercoherent societies are closely interconnected, working as a unit for
shared prosperity

\- A challenge of hypercoherent societies is that if there's a problem in one
area, it creates a huge impact on the whole (ie. computer network outages)

\- Competition/profits drive hypercohesion and the associated fragility of the
system

\- Observations of 'this is the greatest period in <<something>>' are warning
signs of status wars that could be construed as ominous

\- Dependence on unsustainable systems (ie. transportation infrastructure)
creates an entanglement theory that prevents leaders from taking corrective
action (ie. closing an sink hole of a subway line)

\- This entanglement theory compounds and can lead to speedy collapses

~~~
dboreham
Ha! So Royalty was a good idea after all.

~~~
Retric
Royalty tends to be a lot more stable than democracy's. However, while
critically important it's also just one type of success. Interestingly, in
less stable countries having a strong leader becomes preferred because of just
how damaging chaos is.

~~~
jabl
> Royalty tends to be a lot more stable than democracy's.

Is it? I've thought that _the_ big advantage of democracies is that when
people get fed up with their leaders, they can change them without a bloody
revolution or civil war (which, as you say, is incredibly damaging).

I mean, our dear democratically(?) elected politicians say or do dumb things
just like any inbred royalty, but at least we can switch them peacefully.

Of course, democracies aren't immune and can fail too. E.g. Germany in the
1930's, or for that matter Turkey 2017.

~~~
Retric
US had a massive civil war, further only a fraction of democracy's evem last
100 years. Germany, France, Turkey, Russia, Iran, etc are all well known. But,
look at South America or Africa and you see many countries hold elections, but
not consistently over time.

PS: The US scores relatively low on several measures of democracy. Relatively
few house seats are competitive with many candidates unposed. D.C. has zero
power in congress yet can't even run it's own budget. The president frequently
loses the popular vote by huge margins. Is so something of a nominal democracy
where without massive backlash the people have little say.

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ralfd
Summary?

