Lots of strenuous agreeing with me (vs the article) here, if you actually read what I've said, along with hypothetical tangents that may be worth thinking about but don't belong in a reply to me. Much of this I've addressed, see complex for the pilot, simpler plane. Many distinctions can be made, but less-organized societies have no shortage of complexity and variety (the armies the Romans met in Gaul had enormous variety in equipage, and thanks to little training, all too much variety in the responses of soldiers in battle.) The (Western) Romans didn't go down due to complexity, and Gibbon can't be cited for that claim, as was done. The standardization of Roman shields allowed them to pack together and shield soldiers better, their uniformity was not a "liability".
It's a liability if the costs of the costs of the standardization exceed the real returns, a point which you have 'strenuously' ignored while pretending to push the burden proof back to me.
Sure, in a vacuum anything can be seen as 'complexity', but if you actual measure the costs of doing complicated things in late Roman times then it's clear why their system fell apart while the Germans' largely didn't, despite the Romans having more territory and population to start with, and the key is to see that the late Roman system was horribly inefficient, even after taking standardization into account.
I've made a detailed case for my views. Where's yours?
Otherwise you will never come to any real conclusions, since every society will look more complex from a particular perspective, so none can be fruitfully compared to another. Or you would end up with ridiculous conclusions like modern society is simpler than hunter gatherer societies, because we have uniform driving laws and a global data routing protocol while they don't.
I'm not ignoring perverse standardization as a possibility, but c'mon there's no shortage of additional details that can be added, tangents, exceptions to exceptions, etc. But I'd be more interested if your points were specific historical instances and sourced, not hypotheticals (which we all acknowledge as logically possible.)
I've cited a source, and a specific historical instance, have you?
PS - the German "system" fell apart many times, populations swapped, etc. The area was always a problem, no one empire or monarchy there was a constant problem.
I think the crux of our disagreement here seems to be that you believe size is the main driver of Rome's failure and complexity should play no (causative) role.
I have a more nuanced position: size was certainly a strong causative factor, but it had an intricate relationship to social, military, other complexities in a strong feedback loop that took place over centuries.
In large, complex systems, it's never one factor that fully causes another, but a complex feedback occurs; sometimes the system tends towards homeostasis, while other times a feedback occurs that utterly transforms the system as a whole.
Let's just talk about Rome in particular. Rome's Empire has often been called the 'accidental' empire in the sense that the Roman Republic and the people did not seek out to create an empire from the get-go, but it sort of fell into their lap. How did this happen?
1. Rome was embroiled with constant conflicts with their neighbors starting with the Etruscans and Samnites and developed the military and social institutions (a certain form of complexity here) that let them eventually triumph
2. To defeat their enemies, Rome eventually built a massive war machine (complexity) and found out that conquest was very profitable (selling slaves back in Rome, pillaging and taxing the conquered territories—tons of social, economic, and military complexity, but here have the beginnings of size as well).
3. However, this 'pillaging economy' only worked as long as Rome was able to keep conquering weaker neighbors and taking its population as slaves. At any point in the process, Rome theoretically could have disbanded (or drastically reduced) the size of its legions and decided 'here is enough', but internal conflicts, the quest for glory, etc. kept the military adventurism, because it was profitable for the generals and troops that lead the conquest (a complex arrangement, leading to 'size')
4. Administering a vast empire was difficult, so simplifying reforms (which, as you say and I completely admit, may reduce complexity) like standardization of coinage, law, military equipment, etc. occurred in the late Empire. However this was still in the context of an overly bloated (size) and overly inefficient (complexity) Empire that was only held together by military force
So I think you're absolutely right if your thesis is that size -> complexity. However, in certain cases (like Rome's), complexity -> size as well, and the combination is key.
And the rise and fall of Rome over the centuries can be seen as a certain path one can take:
initial complexity (the highly profitable, 'accidental' Roman war machine) -> overly fast, unsustainable growth -> forced additional complexity due to size -> failure to reform (and simplify) quickly enough -> collapse
