Somethnig for the new year

December 27, 2005 11:33 AM

Collapse of civilization: Not necessarily a bad thingMany will no doubt find the foregoing discussion of collapse depressing or pessimistic. In “How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse”, John Michael Greer hints at why this is, writing, “Even within the social sciences, the process by which complex societies give way to smaller and simpler ones has often been presented in language drawn from literary tragedy, as though the loss of sociocultural complexity necessarily warranted a negative value judgment. This is understandable, since the collapse of civilizations often involves catastrophic human mortality and the loss of priceless cultural treasures, but like any value judgment it can obscure important features of the matter at hand.” Greer goes on to characterize collapse in terms of ecological succession. …Collapse happens precisely because it improves our lives—and it happens when the alternative is no longer tolerable.
posted by halekon (45 comments total)

He seems to operating with varying definitions of civilization.
posted by dios at 11:42 AM on December 27, 2005

Interesting. It will take some time to wade through it all. Good post.

He seems to operating with varying definitions of civilization.

There are varying definitions of civilization.
posted by tkchrist at 12:06 PM on December 27, 2005

"but like any value judgment it can obscure important features of the matter at hand"

I wish that people would stop saying this. Why knock value judgments precisely when you're about to go on record with a positive one? Of course there are two sides to every story -- that doesn't indict value judgments. In fact, if you don't make another one, you'll obscure certain important features of the matter at hand.
posted by ontic at 12:11 PM on December 27, 2005

There are varying definitions of civilization.
posted by tkchrist at 2:06 PM CST on December 27

I agree. But when one is writing about how "civilization" will collapse, we might need some working definition that stays constant throughout the piece.
posted by dios at 12:15 PM on December 27, 2005

every civilization eventually does though, Doesn't it?
Babylon, Egypt, Rome, Byzantine, imperial China, Holy Roman Empire, the Mayans and Incans Etc, eventually internal and external pressures break them, so we will eventually fail as a civilization according to past experience, no shame in it.
posted by Elim at 12:28 PM on December 27, 2005

And all along I thought the GOP was to blame.
posted by Postroad at 12:33 PM on December 27, 2005

Here's a thought:

How many businesses have arisen, gained complexity, thrived and then failed when facing internal and external cost pressures? Are not those businesses frequently overthrown by and/or replaces by smaller more competitive corporations?

Is it possible that industrialized nations experience these "collapses of civilization" without armed conflict and without significant damage to the beneficial infrastructure made possible by a modern government?
posted by BeerGrin at 12:37 PM on December 27, 2005

"Babylon, Egypt, Rome, Byzantine, imperial China, Holy Roman Empire, the Mayans and Incans Etc."

Looking over these examples, none of them had:

1) The means to make a significant change in its ruling class without armed uprising.

2) had a system that would allow one structure to "fall" without taking all the other societal structures with it.

I wonder if a representative democracy, with all this fractious command structure, is fluid enough to change without being "destroyed"?
posted by BeerGrin at 12:42 PM on December 27, 2005

Is it possible that industrialized nations experience these "collapses of civilization" without armed conflict and without significant damage to the beneficial infrastructure made possible by a modern government?

The fall of the British Empire gives a very mixed answer to that very question.
posted by Elim at 12:42 PM on December 27, 2005

The fall of the British Empire gives a very mixed answer to that very question.

Ahhhhh!

Interesting. The problems of comparison could be monumental when comparing the Island Kingdom of Briton to any nation on a continental land mass.

The Empire was arguably a business operation with direct military support. Governments are now less directly involved with most business interests (Exceptions being notable and controversial.)

Save the energy markets, global trade seems to operate successful absent military intervention. The Japanese recovery after WWII would be a notable example.
posted by BeerGrin at 12:57 PM on December 27, 2005

1) The means to make a significant change in its ruling class without armed uprising.

Depends...Rome started out mostly democratic before the Senate's power was overtaken by the Caesar's.

2) had a system that would allow one structure to "fall" without taking all the other societal structures with it.

Not sure what you mean by this. What structure? The Government? Economic institutions? Civil institutions? I think ultimately it is economic collapse that leads to a civilization's demise otherwise you'd just have a regime or societal change.
posted by aaronscool at 1:20 PM on December 27, 2005

Written with all the apocalyptic anticipatory delight of our old friend Green fascism. Heard it all before, right back to the 60s. He'll end up wrong like Ehrlich and Lindsey and the rest.
posted by A189Nut at 1:24 PM on December 27, 2005

"2) had a system that would allow one structure to "fall" without taking all the other societal structures with it.

Not sure what you mean by this. What structure? The Government? Economic institutions? Civil institutions? I think ultimately it is economic collapse that leads to a civilization's demise otherwise you'd just have a regime or societal change."

I am picturing each large corporate collapse as a mini-catastrophe. Corporations can fall w/o taking a whole market segment with them. Some whole market segments could fail without utterly destroying the overall society.

It seems to me that a competitive economy allows for new entrants to the market who make up for even catastrophic losses. It also seems to me that these mini-catastropies limit the utility of abandoning the overall societal structure.

If American car makers all fail, will anyone feel the need to destroy the American federal government?


stopping to state my point better: I think modern economies are more rugged then ancient economies. I think the (admittedly limited) separation of political and economic power is part of why the system is more durable. I think the competition in the market helps to limit economic forest fires by allowing frequent burn off's.
posted by BeerGrin at 1:32 PM on December 27, 2005

The fall of the British Empire gives a very mixed answer to that very question.

what BeerGrin said above + this:

national power comes from wealth and control of same, and how many wealthy friends you have to support you on the world chessboard.

Wealth, things that we value, comes from:

1) digging it out of the ground & growing it in the fields

2) manufacturing labor + fixed capital adding value to raw materials and intermediate goods, producing finished goods

3) services (services do not technically "create" wealth but at the end of the day those who provide services end up with wealth from those who produced it)

4) theft (incl. indirectly through intermediates who get their cut)

The British Empire was too highly leveraged over 4), relying on strongmen (whom they called "Emirs", "Rajs", "Princes", etc) even though British commercial interests did invest locally in 1), 2) and were world-leaders in 3). Once the strongmen fell, or new strongmen rose, the sweetheart wealth-transfer deals to the UK died.

The American Century was also based on 4) to some extent, paying off leaders to allow US commercial interests to cart wealth out of their country at "unfair" rates of return on investment (cf United Fruit, Cuba, OPEC countries nationalizing Big Oil operations, Allende).

Terrorism upsets this "power belongs to the wealthy" somewhat; 4 AQ guys with boxcutters did something the Germans and Japanese couldn't do in WW2: blow a hole in the Pentagon.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 1:37 PM on December 27, 2005

Lots of things to disagree with here.

... the only innovations unique to the unsustainable complexity of the Neolithic Revolution have been the unnecessary evil of hierarchy (see thesis #11), ...

Last I checked, hierarchy is a common element of mammalian life.

It is difficult to consider our own morals in such an analytical light, but philanthropy has caused great suffering, and "tribalism" was a vital component of the only true peace our species has ever known.

The examples he gives are Christians conquering nations "in order to spread Christianity," and Nazis exterminating the "inferior races" for "the good of all mankind." Neither of these are acts of philanthropy. They are acts of despots acting in their own economic self interest. What war ISN'T about economics?

Also, his whole line of thinking suffers from the "what the fuck do we do now" syndrome. Ok, so we're all doomed. Great. What the fuck do we do now?

He really offers absolutely nothing substantive in this regard. What, I'm supposed to grab 149 of my best friends, and we're supposed live on some silly commune and churn our own butter, waiting the rest of our lives for the end of civilization? Please. This is absurd.

All we can do is try to make our civilization last as long as possible.
posted by Afroblanco at 1:53 PM on December 27, 2005

Extending the analysis back to the US, I'm no macroeconomist but AFAICT our present trade imbalance is in fact a giant sucking of claims to wealth (eg stock ownership, consumer debt, real estate, and T-bills & bonds) to foreign interests (Japan, China, the House of Saud).

They are selling us needed resources (eg. oil) and desired finished goods (yes, the crap we buy from Walmart is a form of wealth) and lending us the money to do it, since we cannot provide them sufficient goods in return (partially because they are willing to live more economically, and at a lower standard of living).

Whether the $20B/month outflow (our present deficit with China) is sustainable is an unknown to me; since 1992 this outflow has been doubling (*exactly*) every 4 years.

It's important to note that being wealthy isn't swimming a pool of money, "wealthy" is swimming in a (clean) pool, period; that, plus the fulfillment of the zillions of other needs and wants of modern life. I guess I should read the FPP to see what the guy is saying about this.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 2:04 PM on December 27, 2005

Last I checked, hierarchy is a common element of mammalian life.

fallacy of naturalism. Nature is not moral.

What war ISN'T about economics

google fails me.

There can be a strong element of fighting for cultural independence, national pride, military honor; wars are not always 100% assayed on economic interests.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 2:14 PM on December 27, 2005

There can be a strong element of fighting for cultural independence, national pride, military honor

And what one thing do all of these, in the end, come back to?
posted by Afroblanco at 2:16 PM on December 27, 2005

Look slike a differnet definition of "Collapse" than Jared Diamond... I really don't think there'd be any upside whatsoever to being caught in the middle of a Diamond collapse.
posted by Artw at 2:18 PM on December 27, 2005

Collapse happens precisely because it improves our lives

Isn't this just teleology? This sort of statement makes me highly suspicious of the writer.
posted by spazzm at 2:18 PM on December 27, 2005

The piece was quite interesting until such statements as

the fragile interconnectedness of our globalized, industrial civilization will eventually propogate a catastrophic, catabolic collapse that will cascade through the entire system, feeding on itself until we have reached the next lowest level of sustainable complexity: the Stone Age.
and
though agriculture produces the most food absolutely, the ratio of food per unit of labor is in fact higher than any other subsistence technology
and
Rumblings of awareness have become increasingly ambient in the popular imaginaton in recent years, though full acceptance of the situation remains rare.

There are fine lines between pedagogy, intellectualization and clinical paranoia.
posted by DirtyCreature at 2:30 PM on December 27, 2005

Ok, having read the guy he ignores distribution of wealth, and the factors of production, and basically is too historically minded and not focused enough on the present-day economics of wealth creation and distribution, and the politics therein.

For one of my side projects I am looking at the fundamentals of human economics, ie what our needs are and what goods and services we require to fulfill them.

Seems to me one really doesn't need $40k/yr to get by in this world, if you've got a grip on how to separate needs from wants.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 2:37 PM on December 27, 2005

wars are not always 100% assayed on economic interests.

How about this, then: wars are about resources. Sometimes those resources can be imaginary (as in religious wars, such as the Crusades to 'free Jerusalem from the infidel', where the resource is symbolic), or they can be out and out grabs for land and economic wealth. Or they can be a combination of both, or pretend to be one when they are really about another.
posted by jokeefe at 2:39 PM on December 27, 2005

And what one thing do all of these, in the end, come back to?

Nothing (directly) to do the production of wealth.

Sure, slavery was an economic issue wrapped in a moral quandary, but not all moral & cultural controversies have economic centers, eg. Arianism vs. Monophysite (I believe there was some fighting over that), or the Iconoclast troubles of Byzantine Greece.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 2:41 PM on December 27, 2005

jokeefe: I suppose one could argue that the more /rational/ a war is, the more it is based on economics.

Though I do believe this is selling the morality of "national liberation" short. I would have been willing to kick in $100 toward a Shiite insurgency that had a good chance of taking down Saddam without too much collateral damage, without any expectation of receiving economic benefit thereby.

Same thing with eg. the peeps in Bolivia. I wish them well in their fight against the neoliberal order, even though that's actually going to indirectly harm my country's wealth position somewhat.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 2:49 PM on December 27, 2005

It was only 200 years ago that we didn't have on any major scale, machines, metallurgy, power, communications, medicine, mass production of clothes and food, secularization. Seems to me 18th century England would be the next lowest level of sustainable complexity - much as it was for many during the Great Depression of the 20th Century.

But then people wouldn't link to his article if he made a prediction as unapocalyptic as that.
posted by DirtyCreature at 2:56 PM on December 27, 2005

Of course 18th century England had forests full of sizeable trees and tons and tons of readily accessable coal waiting to be exploited, which aren't there now, and was a beneficiary of a European economic boom based on the exploitation of the New Worlds resources.
posted by Artw at 3:13 PM on December 27, 2005

Yeah, like the Dark Ages. What a great time that was.
posted by StarForce5 at 3:15 PM on December 27, 2005

Hmm, I guess it depends on how bad the world blows up should the "collapse" actually happen.

While I do agree with eg. JH Kunstler that our society is dangerously over-leveraged on fossil fuels, I share ~some~ of the faith of our free-market fundamentalists that capitalism will pull our nuts out of the fire (via innovation) before the energy picture gets too bleak.

Without identifying the actual possible modalities of collapse talking about its effects is nonscientific babbling.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 3:17 PM on December 27, 2005

18th century England had forests full of sizeable trees and tons and tons of readily accessable coal waiting to be exploited, which aren't there now

Solar energy, wind energy and soil fertilization - they're not about to be uninvented. Agreed though - cold climates will suffer.
posted by DirtyCreature at 3:37 PM on December 27, 2005

and was a beneficiary of a European economic boom based on the exploitation of the New Worlds resources

hrrm, UK also prospered by inventing the steam engine, the railroad, the factory, medical advances, the modern sewer system, etc. Though the interesting question is how much did the wealth from the colonial empire subsidize these inventive activities.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 3:46 PM on December 27, 2005

and was a beneficiary of a European economic boom based on the exploitation of the New Worlds resources.
I was talking 18th Century pre-industrial revolution. English society was primarily agrarian at this time.
posted by DirtyCreature at 4:00 PM on December 27, 2005

And what one thing do all of these, in the end, come back to?

Nothing (directly) to do the production of wealth.

I disagree.

cultural independence - If the culture that you live in changes, you will be at a disadvantage compared to those belonging to the conquering culture. It will be more difficult for you to make money and survive.

national pride & military honor - If your nation gets taken over, it's even worse then if your culture is taken over. You will have to be subservient to another country. This will most likely involve them taking economic resources that would otherwise belong to you.
posted by Afroblanco at 4:57 PM on December 27, 2005

Did I miss something or is this a long way of saying: we're fucked, start learning how to make tools out of flint.

Collapse has already begun...The current level of complexity cannot be maintained, and individual regions cannot collapse on their own--they must collapse as a system... the fragile interconnectedness of our globalized, industrial civilization will eventually propagate a catastrophic, catabolic collapse that will cascade through the entire system, feeding on itself until we have reached the next lowest level of sustainable complexity: the Stone Age.

The thrust of the argument seems to be that complexity is unsustainable and generally bad, and that modern civilisation is pretty darn complex. I tend to agree that the global system is pushing a bit hard and may well suffer a historically serious setback. But this does not mean complexity is bad per se, just the current (failing) model. I like to think enough humans will adapt and find a way to use modern learning to avoid the stone-age scenario.

The world appears to me as one very complex natural system. The trend since the dawn of life on earth has been to progressively greater complexity, as seen in the diversity of life and the interdependence of species and systems. We humans are the pinnacle of this complexity, and it seems unlikely to me that the thing nature and we do best (complexity and diversity) is 'unsustainable'. Maybe there will be collapse, maybe some folks will end up eating dirt and fighting with rocks, but I for one fully expect to go to Mars.

Collapse ends those things that define complex society--hierarchical oppression, war, disease, toil and others. It restores society to the lower level of complexity to which humans are best adapted, a level which still enjoys art, medicine, science, mathematics, and technology.

This seems more like a fantasy than a theory - all the fun of humanity with none of the messy bits and hard work.

No hierarchical oppression - no dominant members/leaders/alpha-males? No war - no fights over resources? No disease - no shit!? No toil - but we like to build stuff!

The implication is that scarsity of resoucres brings out the best in man - maybe, but I doubt human nature will suddenly change.

In summary, stone-age, schmone-age. Humans will not rest at a lower level of complexity. There may be an almighty crash, but failing wholesale nuclear war or super-massive epidemic, we're going to keep on inventing and dreaming and fucking shit up until we get to space and start grooving with the universe.
posted by MetaMonkey at 6:02 PM on December 27, 2005

*cough* social Darwinism *cough*
posted by kablam at 7:28 PM on December 27, 2005

It looks to me like Godesky's taken a lot of hot ideas & mashed them together without quite taking the time to really understand them. He's got everything from Dunbar's Number to Peak Oil in there, skimming off the easy-to-digest "cream" concepts & leaving behind the less palatable but intellectually necessary underlying principles that make them work. I predict that he couldn't give a rigorous definition of "complexity," one of the core concepts of his work, without referring to books.

For an alternate & IMO more informed view of the effects of complexification on society I recommend a RAND paper titled Tribes, Institutions, Markets, Networks: A Framework About Societal Evolution. You can also read a good summary of the ideas in it if you don't want to wade through the PDF.
posted by scalefree at 10:21 PM on December 27, 2005

Yum, the eco-friendly version of the Rapture. Cleanse this sin cursed world!
posted by darukaru at 7:53 AM on December 28, 2005

This article is but one part of a continuing series. So I just thought it worth pointing out that many, if not all, of the objections that have been raised in this thread have been/will be addressed in another section.
posted by magodesky at 10:28 AM on December 28, 2005

many, if not all, of the objections that have been raised in this thread have been/will be addressed in another section.

Full marks for putting your thoughts and arguments down for all to read. I found large chunks of your ideas interesting. But your rationalization of why agricultural practice would be unstable in any collapse was pure silliness. In places, you write like you have a point of view to sell and you needed to find the most convenient rationalization to get the product you're pushing off the shelves and out the door.
posted by DirtyCreature at 11:34 AM on December 28, 2005

Michael: I like a lot of the ideas that were used in the construction of your scenario. I've been following many of the same trains of thought myself in recent years. I just find exception with how you've put them together, which I feel shows a lack of understanding of the fundamental, underlying concepts. I think that in your haste to connect the ideas into a single coherent whole, you've skipped the all-important steps of really learning how each of the ideas really works & letting the data shape the hypothesis. You've got ahold of a lot of powerful ideas, I just think you need to learn how to use them better before you try to build something with them.
posted by scalefree at 12:57 PM on December 28, 2005

Actually, the Thirty Theses aren't mine. They're the work of Jason Godesky, my brother. I just thought I'd point you to the other theses in his absence.

Still, I've yet to fully understand precisely what it is you feel is lacking in the argument. Admittedly, I only skimmed a good portion of the thread. But this is the result of many years of study, and as far as I can tell, it's pretty sound. But we're always open to specific criticisms.

DirtyCreature is, at least in part, correct in that we do have a point of view. My idea of the reason for the theses (although, you'd have to ask Jason for a more exact explanation) is not so much to provide an in-depth explanation of all of the factors at work--something that has already been explored in a fair amount of detail by others--but rather, to provide a starting point for people who are unfamiliar with the core concepts that we're dealing with. Ultimately, though, I think it's something that takes more than one article to fully take in.

Also, the theses as they stand now are supposed to be a draft of sorts. As I understand it, Jason intends to publish a final version after he's done posting them that will be a bit more polished. So perhaps your criticisms will be more fully addressed in the final version.
posted by magodesky at 8:41 PM on December 28, 2005

Wacko primitivists fail to understand (1) that a social collapse will not take modern technology down with it, or (2) that our interconnected systems permit partial collapses, ala great depressions. I'd love to see the U.S. fracture into many independent nations, and I might live that long, but it won't set us back much technologically.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:38 PM on December 28, 2005

Michael & Jason,

I appreciate the amount of effort that's gone into these theses, but I still think much of it's misguided or misdirected. Complexity has a number of definitions, most of them having something or other to do with a field of science called Complex Systems.

If you really intend to be taken seriously in the field you need to work within the established framework, use words according to standard definitions, demonstrate where your ideas are in agreement with the work of others (consilience), provide testable hypotheses & mathematically rigorous models. I don't see any of that in your work.

IMO you need to spend a lot more time learning how to use the fundamental tools & concepts of Complex Systems before you try to create a structure this ambitious, else it will itself collapse under its own weight.
posted by scalefree at 10:20 AM on December 29, 2005

I see a lot of people saying that a better understanding of the underlying concepts is required, but I see very little about what specifically is lacking in the argument. Disregarding of course the possibility that further research will change the conclusion by magic, I have difficulty giving much weight to the criticisms of people who can't even seem to specify what their criticisms are.
posted by magodesky at 7:07 AM on December 30, 2005

In modern "petroculture," 10 calories of fossil fuels are burned for every 1 calorie of food produced. Horticulturalists have the most efficient lifestyle; foragers have the easiest lifestyle.

In current practice, it is most profitable to burn fossil fuels to produce food on a large scale. Therefore when fossil fuels are all exhausted, agriculture in any form will become completely unviable and we will all be foragers again.

Silly. Almost childishly so.
posted by DirtyCreature at 2:26 PM on December 30, 2005