05-07-2008, 01:04 PM
I'll just point out the relevant factors from the article, that may help those who haven't read it to mull it over some more (the article is by Debora MacKenzie):
Archaeologist and author of 'The Collapse of Complex Socoeties',Joseph Tainter, of University of Utah, says; "For the past 10,000 years, problem solving has produced increased complexity in human societies."
If crops fail because rain is patchy, build irrigation canals. When they silt up, organise dredging crews. When the bigger crop yields lead to a bigger population, build more canals. When there are too many for ad hoc repairs, install a management bureaucracy, and tax people to pay for it. When they complain, invent tax inspectors and a system to record the sums paid. That much the Sumerians knew.
Every extra layer of organisation imposes a cost in terms of energy, the common currency of all human efforts, from building canals to educating scribes. Increasing complexity produces diminishing returns. Each hour of labour produces diminishing returns for every hour of labour.
To keep growing, societies must keep solving problems as they arise. Yet each problem solved means more complexity. Success generates a larger population, more kinds of specialists, more resources to manage, more information to juggle - and, ultimately, less bang for your buck.
Eventually, the point is reached when all the energy and resources available to a society are required just to maintain its existing level of complexity. Then when the climate changes, or the barbarians invade, overstretched institutions break down and civil order collapses. What emerges is a less coplex society, which is organised on a smaller scale or has been taken over by another group.
Now, call me an idiot, but I'm already feeling a certain amount of "Hmmm, where do I know that set of events from?"
head of the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, MA, Yaneer Bar Yam believes social organisations become steadily more complex as they are required to deal both with environmental problems and with challenges from from neighbouring societies who are also becoming more complex. This eventually leads to a fundamental shift in the way the society is organised.
"To run a hierarchy, managers cannot be less complex than the system they are managing."
As complexity increases, societies add ever more layers of management but, ultimately in a hierarchy, one individual has to try and get their head around the whole thing (now who could that have been in the Empire? :wink: ) and this starts to become impossible. At that point, hierarchies give way to networks in which decision-making is distributed (West and East Empires?).
One modern example of growing complexity creating its own obstacles, in my tiny mind, is ration books in World War Two. A relatively small number of civil servants with typewriters, pens and paper, using public transport, made a census of the entire UK's household units and its needs in a matter of weeks, and created an efficient system for food distribution.
Try that now using computer databases and all of the modern advantages of technology, and I would bet £1000 the same task would take many months and months.
I'm wondering if the Romans saw the same apply to them, especially in a time of growing pressure from outside.
Archaeologist and author of 'The Collapse of Complex Socoeties',Joseph Tainter, of University of Utah, says; "For the past 10,000 years, problem solving has produced increased complexity in human societies."
If crops fail because rain is patchy, build irrigation canals. When they silt up, organise dredging crews. When the bigger crop yields lead to a bigger population, build more canals. When there are too many for ad hoc repairs, install a management bureaucracy, and tax people to pay for it. When they complain, invent tax inspectors and a system to record the sums paid. That much the Sumerians knew.
Every extra layer of organisation imposes a cost in terms of energy, the common currency of all human efforts, from building canals to educating scribes. Increasing complexity produces diminishing returns. Each hour of labour produces diminishing returns for every hour of labour.
To keep growing, societies must keep solving problems as they arise. Yet each problem solved means more complexity. Success generates a larger population, more kinds of specialists, more resources to manage, more information to juggle - and, ultimately, less bang for your buck.
Eventually, the point is reached when all the energy and resources available to a society are required just to maintain its existing level of complexity. Then when the climate changes, or the barbarians invade, overstretched institutions break down and civil order collapses. What emerges is a less coplex society, which is organised on a smaller scale or has been taken over by another group.
Now, call me an idiot, but I'm already feeling a certain amount of "Hmmm, where do I know that set of events from?"
head of the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, MA, Yaneer Bar Yam believes social organisations become steadily more complex as they are required to deal both with environmental problems and with challenges from from neighbouring societies who are also becoming more complex. This eventually leads to a fundamental shift in the way the society is organised.
"To run a hierarchy, managers cannot be less complex than the system they are managing."
As complexity increases, societies add ever more layers of management but, ultimately in a hierarchy, one individual has to try and get their head around the whole thing (now who could that have been in the Empire? :wink: ) and this starts to become impossible. At that point, hierarchies give way to networks in which decision-making is distributed (West and East Empires?).
One modern example of growing complexity creating its own obstacles, in my tiny mind, is ration books in World War Two. A relatively small number of civil servants with typewriters, pens and paper, using public transport, made a census of the entire UK's household units and its needs in a matter of weeks, and created an efficient system for food distribution.
Try that now using computer databases and all of the modern advantages of technology, and I would bet £1000 the same task would take many months and months.
I'm wondering if the Romans saw the same apply to them, especially in a time of growing pressure from outside.
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
A A A DESEDO DESEDO!
A A A DESEDO DESEDO!
