HeavenlyPossum on Nostr: In his work “The Collapse of Complex Societies,” Joseph Tainter argued that ...

In his work “The Collapse of Complex Societies,” Joseph Tainter argued that societies are prone to collapse when the marginal returns on additional complexity begin to plateau and then decrease.

A society might find itself so complex—with so many specialists, interconnections, and layers of hierarchy to maintain—that it has few or no resources left to respond to a new problem by adding more complexity, or even by maintaining its present level of complexity. In these circumstances, a society might economize by shedding layers of complexity: losing specializations, separating previously connected components, or—my favorite—shedding layers of hierarchy.