Joseph Tainters book on The Collapse of Complex Societies is an interesting read. In it, he states that declining returns on an investment in complexity ultimately make complexity less attractive  so much so in fact that eventually people determine that less centralized forms of society are preferable to the high maintenance of complexity.

Under such conditions, the option to decompose becomes attractive to certain components of a complex society. Many of the social units that comprise a complex society perceive increased advantage to a strategy of independence, and begin to pursue their own immediate goals rather than the long-term goals of the hierarchy.

The managers want control at all costs; the peons want nothing to do with it  the price becomes too high.

I reread some of Tainters book today after I read Jim Lords piece. Mr. Lord, whose opinion I respect, paints a picture where I find little attractive enough for which to fight. No, the world probably wont go cold at midnight January 1 (unless Bruce Beach was right). But the painful unraveling and the ensuing struggle to set things straight sounds like a recipe for tyranny to me.

A complex society that has collapsed is suddenly smaller, simpler, less stratified, and less socially differential. The flow of information drops, people trade and interact less, and there is overall lower coordination among individuals and groups. Economic activity drops to a commensurate level

It was Douglass Carmichael who first painted a picture of post-Y2K America in strokes of todays Soviet Union that jerked my head around. In his Mafia scenario, he says, The breakup of the Soviet Union is a good model to learn from, where, with a break in the official system, the black market emerged as the new legitimate form of market and governance... Those already strong will try to co-opt the local situation for personal gain in exchange for delivering goods and protection. Its a kind of neo-feudalism, an extension of gated communities, and likely to lead to lots of fighting.

Y2K will most likely be a slow, but determined, tailspin. In that tailspin, the fall guy must be the terrorist. To admit that it was a computer problem admits lack of management, and leadership in the public/private sectors could never have that. Those hackers and those terrorists viruses and bombs, cyber and physical In which case the issues that led to all of this never get addressed and therefore nothing solved.

Collapse is recurrent in human history; it is global in its occurrence; and it affects the spectrum of societies from simple foragers to great empires. Tainter argues that humans are taught that civilization is the ultimate accomplishment of human society, and because of this, collapse is viewed as a catastrophe. An end to the artistic and literary features of civilization, and to the umbrella of service and protection that an administration provides, are seen as fearful events, truly paradise lost.

Where nearly all of us have no concept or experience of collapse, Tainter shows that complex societies are recent to human history. Collapse then is not a fall to some primordial chaos, but a return to the normal human condition of lower complexity. Its normal. Complexity is still an experiment, a trial with plenty of error. It shouldnt be regarded as an aberration that collapse might occur. The probabilities are with collapse. And the signs are omnipresent that our society is vulnerable to degradation and, some day, decomposition.

Jim Lord reminds everyone to not use up the supplies, stores, or preparations theyve made to ready themselves and their families for this event, even if it begins slowly. I encourage all of you whove prepped to continue to hone those skills. Were all sensing that Y2K is only an element in a larger problem. As Carmichael put it, Y2K is not so much a problem to be solved as it is a symptom.

-- Brett (savvydad@netins.net), December 24, 1999

Answers

Brett,

I'm a fan of Tainter's work, though I gather that it's regarded as controversial to at least some of the mainstream historians, particularly those who have their own explanations for the relatively sudden collapses of various civilizations over the past few thousand years.

If I remember correctly, Gary North also commented on Tainter's work in one of his recent newsletters. He made the observation that one of the reasons the Aztec civilization, as well as several others in the southerwestern U.S. and Latin America, is that individual peons could simply "walk away" from the complex civilization they could no longer tolerate, and have a reasonable chance of surviving on their own. That was probably true of several of the early Middle Eastern civilizaitons too -- i.e., the planet was still sufficiently unpopulated that peons could simply "opt out" and go off somewhere to fend for themselves.

Oh, wait, it wasn't Gary North who discussed this; it was in the latest Daniel Quinn book, entitled "Beyond Civilization". Quinn is better known to many people as the author of "Ishmael," "The Story of B," and "My Ishmael." His first book is still, IMHO, the best; but "Beyond Civilization" is definitely worth reading if you enjoyed "The Collapse of Complex Civilizations."

Interesting that you would connect all of this to Jim Lord's latest newsletter. I'll have to ponder that for a while... thanks for the heads-up.

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), December 24, 1999.

Ed,

I think one of my deepest concerns is that we may collectively lose our ability to "walk away" as did those in earlier civilizations. This for reason of lost skills or, worse, lack of resources, like seeds. Seed termination technology and the insertion of jellyfish genes into corn to get plants to glow under ultra-violet light... we're messing with things we can't truly yet have a grasp of.

Don't let your family persuade you to quickly walk away from your "walk away." I think it is probably the best thing you can pass on to your children and their children.

And thanks for the suggestion... I'll look into the book. Have a cool Yule!

-- Brett (savvydad@netins.net), December 25, 1999.

Well, my greatest fear is the fact that I'm diabetic...U'm tough..been homeless and lived in a Nat'l forest in Florida...buuuut- I still have to take insulin, no way around it. A collapse would be a death sentence for me. I can deal with that tho, everything that lives dies. But-even if I were healthy...the idea of our country-no matter how foolish it can be- would scare the hell out of me. Not because I would be afraid of not making it, but because some other countries that win't have the same probs..I.E., China perhaps, not as dependant on machinery and computers- could very well walk in after a collapse and take over. Just food for thought.

-- Satanta (EventHoriz@n.com), December 25, 1999.

Well, my spelling was certainly atrocious... "But-even if I were healthy...the idea of our country [collapsing]-no matter how foolish it can be- would scare the hell out of me" Just to clarify THAT sentence a little better...the rest I imagine you can figure out.

-- Satanta (EventHoriz@n.com), December 25, 1999.

Satanta: Whoa, a "national forest in Florida"?

Was it by chance the Ocala national forest? I lived there for a while in the '60s in a backwoods commune.

And while I don't have diabetes, I *do* have congestive heart failure and depend on BP meds to stay alive. I've managed to save up a few months supply by "scrimping", but not sure what I'd do (other than die after a while) if the supply is gone, and *stays* gone for any period of time.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), December 25, 1999.

Brett, Good post, thanks. You say "I think one of my deepest concerns is that we may collectively lose our ability to "walk away"..." I am curious why you are so optimistic that you think we have not already lost that ability?

Beyond seeds, which are absolutely vital, there is so much more. We live these days standing on the shoulders of so many other people. (Gary North refers to it more properly as the division of labor.) In our arrogance, we have ignored or denigrated, and therefore lost so much knowledge and wisdom . We have committed genocide on native peoples that had millenia of experience living sustainable lives. With each grandma and grandpa we push off to a retirement home to die in isolation we lose generations of practical experience in basic skills. A few of these skills have been recorded in books, a poor substitute IMO, for knowing how to survive on the earth. We are all "citizens of the world" in that we do not live only, or even at all, in, on and from the land where we reside. We live by exploiting the under-valued labor and natural resouces of (usually brown-skinned) people around the world.

I live in the mountains of western Montana, and have done a fair amount of study on the area. The Indians who lived _here_ (in that they did not import anything necessary to their lives from elsewhere), did not live luxuriously, but fairly comfortably compared to many other plains and desert tribes. They survived in a landscape with fish and game hundreds or perhaps thousands of times more plentiful than now. The European conquerers/settlers, even while importing an ever-increasing amount of goods from the more developed lands behind them, always relied on plentiful game to survive, and more so in years when weather was unkind to crops. Even into the 1940's, rural people everywhere in this country regularly supplemented their diet with wild game.

Montana is known as hunting mecca, but the game is a shadow of its former abundance. The difference is documented in many books and journals, and is even obvious to me personally as I remember my childhood hunts in the 1950s. If this is true in areas like this, which are "the last best place", then think how much worse the situation has become in more densely populated places where wildlife habitat is not just reduced, it is gone!

Having fouled the air, water and land with poisons and toxic waste of every description; having decimated a thousand times over the abundance of plant and animal numbers and species; and having turned our backs on our heritage of knowledge and wisdom from our elders, where is there a place, that will not take generations to arrive, to walk away *to*, either physically or metophorically?

-- Joe (paraflyr@cybernet1.com), December 25, 1999.

Joe...excellent post as well. One of the reason's I decided not to 'bug out' too early- everyone else is 'bugging out' as well...the empty city will be the forest for a time while all the nuts are shooting each other for a rabbit.

Ron...Yes, sir. On the Southern edge of the Ocala forest down in Lake County. Nice country, and being a photographer, lots to photo- But I got tired of the heat so I've come North to see some snow. Now I'm thinking I should have stayed there one more Winter...~G~

-- Satanta (EventHoriz@n.com), December 25, 1999.

To escape from slavery, to become a pean, I took this job:

"I reported to work on Monday evening because I chose to work swing shift; it paid a few cents an hour more. After I was asked to buy leather gloves and a leather apron, Boss led me deeply into a huge windowless building. I followed him up, and down various levels, through a labyrinth of stacked lumber. Tree trunks were screeching through saws and screaming planers. Wheels and belts were squeaking, boards were moving.

I resisted the impulse to run back out.

Not here, God, please not here.

We neared the other end of the building because I could see daylight ahead. We went outside and into a long open-sided shelter covering a wooden river of moving boards, laid side by side. At the far end, the flow came out of a black cavern. Men scurrying along the riverbanks were pulling these boards from the moving chain, to load them onto stacks, by length and grade. My guide stopped here and explained to me the various grade marks. I was to catch selected boards from the river and stack them on the riverbank behind me. This was the extent of my training, and he did not introduce me to the men working there. They had no time to stop fishing because the river never stopped flowing.

I took my station between two human robots that paid no attention to me. I donned my gloves and apron, strapping down its leggings. I felt armored and strong like the knights of medieval Europe.

I lifted the end of a board to pull it from the river.

Scheisse! Are these made of iron?

It was heavier than any board I had ever lifted. And I had lugged hundreds of them for xxxxxs dike. This board was green, full of sap and rough-sawn. It had been part of a log just minutes before. I lifted the twenty-foot long two-by-twelve over the rollers mounted at the edge of the waist-high platform, pulled it off, guided it unto a stack and dropped it. Turned around, grabbed the next one, pulled it off, threw it into place, turned around, dashed to the left, pulled it off, threw it into place, dashed to the right  all night long.

When the sun set that evening, it dawned on me that I was working on the green chain which I had heard about in high school. It was the toughest job in town.

What I despised most was the lack of interaction with the robots. They did not talk.

How long will it be before I become a robot? Will my brain shrink in proportion to the swelling of my muscles? Were these robots born that way? Only robots could do this work for very long. Had shrinks studied them? Did they reproduce? Should they reproduce? Yes, for the shareholders.

When the shift was over at two o'clock in the morning, I followed the workers out of the factory. As soon as I reached level ground without obstacles I ran to my jalopy, even though I was dead tired and my legs were rubbery. My arms felt inches longer, my legs inches shorter, my back ready to break. When I arrived home I fixed dinner, five bowls of corn flakes with milk and sugar. While I ate, I read, because I thought I had wasted the night. I had not yet rejoiced in the day that the Lord had made.

The next evening I returned to my station on the wooden river. I was doubtful that I could last very long doing this heavy work. My body was aching. The boards never stopped coming. At times I could barely keep up with the flow, running back and forth along the river, catching boards at various locations to remove them. I was using every cell in my body, all but my brain cells; they were cocooned as always.

These boards were sawn from trees ripped from the balding mountains. Trucks had brought down the logs and then dumped them into a pond at the mill, whence they traveled on a chain to be denuded. A giant arm moved along them, blasted them with jets of high-pressure water to explode off their bark. The bare trunks then moved single file into the sawmill, through a giant saw with dragon teeth. These ripped through the logs like the wars had ripped through my soul. A sawyer pushed buttons, moved levers to shuttle them back and forth to be ripped repeatedly. After each cut he decided how to turn the remaining trunk for best economy, to send it back to cut another board. These boards then traveled to the green chain for the historic event, to be sorted by Robots, the first humanoids ever to touch them.

The weeks dragged on. Night after night after my shift I ran back to my jalopy, no matter how exhausted I was, because I could not wait to get out of that hell. I wondered why other people did not run out also.

Are they crazy? Or am I?

* * *

After several weeks on the green chain, I was transferred to the planing mill. This was the last place I wanted to spend eight hours a night. This was where I had asked God to keep me away from when I passed through here on my first day on the job. Here I had to do the same kind of work, pulling boards from conveyor chains. These did not weigh as much after having been trimmed, kiln-dried and planed smooth. So my work became somewhat easier, but my torture became greater, although I was speared by far fewer slivers. I was now totally immersed in one hundred-some decibels of screaming. It was the screaming of wood planers, another sound of hell. It was as loud as jets during take off, as painful as the screaming of air raid sirens that had been stretched into one unending, soul-piercing everlasting scream.

Inside our huge building several jets shot out finished lumber continuously. Their shrieking filled every crack and cranny of our environment. There was no escape from it. It permeated every cell in my body and etched my soul. I could hear it without an ear; I heard it with my bones. To talk, we robots shouted directly into each other's ears, but we mostly communicated with a crude sign language that was punctuated by the bird.

The Company did not provide us with ear protection because this did not yet exist. Or did it? I never saw anyone wear earmuffs. To dampen hell, I stuffed a wad of cotton into each ear, which made no difference in the sound exploding in my head. After leaving work, I always removed waxy cotton from my whistling ear, rotten cotton from my silent ear. I always looked at this cotton to assess the state of my health, to check how rotten I was. These nightly concerts would diminish my hearing acuity considerably later in life, gradually being replaced by permanent whistling instead. Tiny planers are now always screeching inside me. In lieu of a gold watch, this was a fringe benefit from the Company for my faithful and outstanding service.

Most of the lumber we produced was a nominal two inches thick. On occasion three-inch thick planks came down the chain. These had sharp edges and were dripping wet. We also had to remove them from the conveyor and drop them skillfully onto stacks like all the other boards. To do so, I let them slide through my hands, and before too long their edges sliced through my rubber gloves which I also had pay for myself. My hands became pickled in preservative and pesticide.

I can be preserved until I die. And long thereafter. I can remain on earth as long as Rameses and Nefertiti.

I worked overtime every chance I had in order to earn enough to attend college in the fall. Once I loaded tons of lumber for thirty-two hours during a forty-eight hour period. It was hard labor; I could barely crawl when I was done. On Saturday morning, after three hours of sleep, I put on my boots and staggered out of the apartment to go to my final shift. Little Brother bid me adieu with an intensely serious face:

You walk like an old man, Not Again!.

Im a dead man crawling into the bowels of hell.

Since robots needed no safety instructions, the Company had no safety program. Rare were the signs, Do Not Walk Into This Dragon or You May Get Squashed Like A Bug Area. There were so many hazards that there would be signs everywhere. Some robots might spend their entire shifts reading and not produce anything. We never received any verbal or written safety tips. This was the era before proliferate laws, lawyers, lawsuits, and bureaucratic concerns for humanity.

Over the time that I was drawn nightly to this mill by my desire to have a toilet, I observed differently modified robots. One occasionally rotated through the nearby You May Get Squashed Like A Bug Area area. A crane had dumped a load of lumber on him and broken his spine; it had been repaired with bones cut from his legs. This shortened them and they appeared to move in a rapid rotary motion when he walked. At this stage he was still not wearing a hard hat. Not many robots did. Nor did I.

A few weeks into summer I witnessed another robot modify himself. His job was to cut defective portions out of the boards that the lumber grader diverted to him. He pulled them from his left side and aligned them squarely in front of a circular saw. To make a cut, he stepped on a button on the floor which caused the buzzing saw to jump forward through the board. And through his fingers. Panicked, this robot stumbled around. I stood paralyzed and could not help because I did not know what to do. Fortunately several robots were hunters and helped him; they had practiced with bloody bones before. The wooden rivers never stopped flowing because there could be no slowing of profit. The highest standard of living in the world had to be maintained and what is the cost of a few digits of a robot? If one becomes useless, we can always get another. And hell be thankful to work here."

Guess what I'm now?

-- Not Again! (seenit@ww2.com), December 25, 1999.