I'm more of a fan of anthropologist Joseph Tainter's theories from Collapse of Complex Societies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter#Social_complexi...). Civilizations are problem solving entities that have some sort of trick they've developed for solving civilizational problems. They exploit that trick with ever increasing levels of complexity until it doesn't work anymore and starts delivering negative marginal returns. They usually fail to realize that the downward spiral has begun and that leads to the collapse as they keep trying to use the strategies that no longer work.
Sometimes a technological breakthrough, like the development of the steam engine in Britain, will reverse the decline and lead to a whole new civilizational development curve.
The theory is independent of population levels and so is not a Malthusian derivative, like most of the popular ones that have been in fashion since the 1970s. I think Tainter's approach is different and unique because he's an anthropologist and not an economist. For example, the total collapse of Rome, the historic civilization most similar to our own, was not caused by environmental factors, but by diminishing marginal returns that eventually went negative of the
"conquer and extract tribute" methodology of the Roman empire.
People tend to think in terms of an oversimplified narrative around the fall of the Roman empire in ways that really don't fit the data.
Romes decline related to the rate information traveled and the need for several people at the top. The eastern roman empire lasted well after the sacking of Rome. But, Rome had fallen several times before this it just being called Rome. The difference is we equate the city with the empire, but the US for example moved it's capital and nobody thinks in terms of the fall of Philadelphia or even fall of the US in 1814 when DC burned.
The Byzantine Empire aka Eastern Roman Empire even covered "Rome" ~550 growing and falling at various points until 1,400.
IMO, it's not really the empires decline we are talking about so much as the city's decline.
"Conquer and extract tribute" wasn't really the Empires M.O. at all, that was more a republic thing. The empire's expansion was really slow once it, you know, became an Empire and stopped after Trajan.
While not a consideration here, I'd imagine the English diaspora establishing a follow the sun presence around the world and the emergence of English as a lingua franca helped in managing stability in the world in the face of adversaries and competitors.
Imagine, if instead of Britain, we'd have had a different power guiding the direction of the world --different philosophies and priorities. As well as a different language for thinking.
Anyone have an argument (or the argument Tainter provides) for whether the "trick" that a civilization exploits has to be (1) singular, (2) original, or (3) not exploitable by contemporary civilizations?
And who wants to chime in their two cents about what the USA's "trick" is in maintaining its global pre-eminence?
I've always wondered if accelerating technological growth is associated with increased population due to a simple statistical effect: if we assume human ingenuity and intelligence is distributed normally, then with larger populations, humanity gets more right tail geniuses. Which creates more innovation. Which allows more humans to exist on a resource constrained planet. It's a virtuous cycle. If this is true, then what happens to tech growth in the next few decades when global population flattens?
> larger populations
> more right tail geniuses.
> more innovation
Only in the right environment. That's why the modern scientific contribution of, let's say, Israel, is an order of magnitude larger than Nigeria's despite being 20 times smaller.
I am also dubious about the implied direct link between "geniuses" and innovation. Is scientific innovation really driven by "geniuses"?
It's not a larger population, it's a larger population of people who can afford to be idle. (Or at least, not spend all of their time working on their day-to-day survival.)
It doesn't matter how smart he is, if Einstein grew up to be a subsistence farmer, in a society with low social mobility, he'd die as one.
Short answer: probably not. Mean matters far more than n.
You're reminding me of an article which circulated some months back about where the question was: Where do you find the most of the world's tallest people -- in a small country with a tall average population (like Norway or the Netherlands) or in a very large country with a short average population.
I don't recall the references and they're not turning up in my archives.
It turns out that when you're multiple standard deviations above average, x-bar (mean) matters far more than n (population).
Which would suggest that in the race to breed intelligence, you'd do better at raising the mean rather than the n. Another hole punched in the "grow the planet to increase total intelligence" argument.
Well yes, provided those smart people have the opportunity to pursue their intellect.
If the vast majority of the people are serfs barely scraping by, and the only people with "idle time" are inbred dunces hanging out at various courts, progress will be very slow (see Europe during the dark ages..).
It's crazy to think of how our currently state of technology could have been reached five hundred years ago, or five hundred years from now. I can't offhand think of anything truly external that has gated our technological advancements, like some event where aliens visit us and we advance quickly by analyzing their tech. Is there an argument that external events might have been real dependencies? I'm thinking of things like volcano eruptions, or certain astronomical patterns, etc.
Sure, if you consider the "lack of external event" to also be an external event: we have been not been thrown back to the stone age, or pushed to the brink of extinction, because no big asteroid has impacted the Earth in recent time, and hopefully next time it does we'll be ready to deal with it with modern technology.
Why the Industrial Revolution occurred when and where it did, and not earlier (see Joseph Needham's question regarding China, which was vastly more technologically advanced) or afterward, or possibly not even at all, is one of the Great Questions.
People frequently discuss exponential population growth, but rarely mention the terrestial confines of such thinking.
Then they say, oh but technology will continue to advance, and yet never mention pioneering space travel.
I feel like economists that extrapolate numbers into the future, but fail to consider space travel are like holy men, refusing to consider that the earth is round, and rather than the imaginary center of a flat universe; doomsayers, warning that we'll sail over the edge, if we venture too far out to sea.
Space colonization doesn't help much with exponential growth.
Lets say the population grows at 1.4% per year, and that, on average, there is one earth's worth of habitable space per star in the galaxy. That buys less than two millenia of time to figure out how to colonize the next galaxy, and doing so would only buy us 50 years of time to colonize another.
Going by energy rather than space, you need to move up a level of the Kardashev scale every 2000 years to sustain a 1.4% growth in energy usage.
In the real world, if you think you have an exponential curve, you just haven't looked far enough to the right yet.
[+] [-] narrator|9 years ago|reply
Sometimes a technological breakthrough, like the development of the steam engine in Britain, will reverse the decline and lead to a whole new civilizational development curve.
The theory is independent of population levels and so is not a Malthusian derivative, like most of the popular ones that have been in fashion since the 1970s. I think Tainter's approach is different and unique because he's an anthropologist and not an economist. For example, the total collapse of Rome, the historic civilization most similar to our own, was not caused by environmental factors, but by diminishing marginal returns that eventually went negative of the "conquer and extract tribute" methodology of the Roman empire.
[+] [-] Retric|9 years ago|reply
Romes decline related to the rate information traveled and the need for several people at the top. The eastern roman empire lasted well after the sacking of Rome. But, Rome had fallen several times before this it just being called Rome. The difference is we equate the city with the empire, but the US for example moved it's capital and nobody thinks in terms of the fall of Philadelphia or even fall of the US in 1814 when DC burned.
The Byzantine Empire aka Eastern Roman Empire even covered "Rome" ~550 growing and falling at various points until 1,400.
IMO, it's not really the empires decline we are talking about so much as the city's decline.
[+] [-] enkid|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|9 years ago|reply
Imagine, if instead of Britain, we'd have had a different power guiding the direction of the world --different philosophies and priorities. As well as a different language for thinking.
[+] [-] liamconnell|9 years ago|reply
And who wants to chime in their two cents about what the USA's "trick" is in maintaining its global pre-eminence?
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bkohlmann|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] axlee|9 years ago|reply
Only in the right environment. That's why the modern scientific contribution of, let's say, Israel, is an order of magnitude larger than Nigeria's despite being 20 times smaller.
I am also dubious about the implied direct link between "geniuses" and innovation. Is scientific innovation really driven by "geniuses"?
[+] [-] vkou|9 years ago|reply
It doesn't matter how smart he is, if Einstein grew up to be a subsistence farmer, in a society with low social mobility, he'd die as one.
[+] [-] dredmorbius|9 years ago|reply
You're reminding me of an article which circulated some months back about where the question was: Where do you find the most of the world's tallest people -- in a small country with a tall average population (like Norway or the Netherlands) or in a very large country with a short average population.
I don't recall the references and they're not turning up in my archives. It turns out that when you're multiple standard deviations above average, x-bar (mean) matters far more than n (population).
Which would suggest that in the race to breed intelligence, you'd do better at raising the mean rather than the n. Another hole punched in the "grow the planet to increase total intelligence" argument.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jabl|9 years ago|reply
If the vast majority of the people are serfs barely scraping by, and the only people with "idle time" are inbred dunces hanging out at various courts, progress will be very slow (see Europe during the dark ages..).
[+] [-] dredmorbius|9 years ago|reply
I'm suspecting an inverted causality arrow here. At best a confounded one.
[+] [-] tunesmith|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gonvaled|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] T0T0R0|9 years ago|reply
Then they say, oh but technology will continue to advance, and yet never mention pioneering space travel.
I feel like economists that extrapolate numbers into the future, but fail to consider space travel are like holy men, refusing to consider that the earth is round, and rather than the imaginary center of a flat universe; doomsayers, warning that we'll sail over the edge, if we venture too far out to sea.
[+] [-] aidenn0|9 years ago|reply
Lets say the population grows at 1.4% per year, and that, on average, there is one earth's worth of habitable space per star in the galaxy. That buys less than two millenia of time to figure out how to colonize the next galaxy, and doing so would only buy us 50 years of time to colonize another.
Going by energy rather than space, you need to move up a level of the Kardashev scale every 2000 years to sustain a 1.4% growth in energy usage.
In the real world, if you think you have an exponential curve, you just haven't looked far enough to the right yet.
[+] [-] rayiner|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnnyhillbilly|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cruftonomicon|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]