Unwinding Complexity and the Collapse of Societies
Feb 3rd, 2009 | By Byron King | Category: Energy, Featured, Politics
I was in New York City recently for some meetings. I was walking around Lower Manhattan and — in a city that large — by chance bumped into an old Navy buddy who now works for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The NTSB ball cap gave him away. He was investigating the “splashdown” of the US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River. It was an unbelievable coincidence to see this fellow after many years.
My NTSB friend was good enough to get me past the security and near the aircraft as it floated in the water. It was nighttime. The weather was very cold and windy, so all the physical work was just plain tough. (Pity the frigid divers, placing slings under the fuselage and wings.) The giant cranes were just getting ready to lift the aircraft hulk out of the river and onto a barge. I was taken in by all the personnel and equipment at the scene of the crash — and this was a nonfatal crash, thank God!
There were New York police and firefighters. There were Port Authority cops. There were New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation people and folks from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. There were New York City Hazmat people, the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Aviation Administration. There were people from the State University of New York scanning the river bottom with sonar.
There were reps from a multitude of private entities like U.S. Airways (naturally), Airbus (ditto), the crane company employees, diving and salvage people, insurance carriers, environmental testing firms and many others. There were lots of news media there as well. There was even a Salvation Army truck on-site, with pots of hot coffee and sandwiches for the many people who were part of the effort.
And then there were lots of spectators, including people working out behind the glass at a gym inside an adjacent building. They were watching the whole scene from the comfort of their StairMasters and Lifecycles.
My take-away thought about this was how complex our society has become. There are layers upon layers of complexity and astonishing levels of technical expertise. There are so many different organizations, agencies, groupings of people and assemblages of equipment. It all costs a lot of money and consumes a lot of energy. When something dramatic happens, like an airplane crash, it all mobilizes and comes on-site. That’s OK when major disasters are one-off incidents. But what if several incidents occur in short order or close proximity? What happens when money, if not energy, gets scarce? The whole process could get overwhelmed.
Dealing with Modern Complexity
Of course, New York knows something about dealing with disasters. After all, we were about three blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center. Still, it takes years to hire and train all of these experts. And more years to acquire all this sophisticated gear. It’s a very laborious and expensive process. Just keeping this level of capability on a standby basis requires a massive commitment of resources. When you need it, you need it now. If you don’t have it, you can’t build it up quickly. And when you have it (like New York has some of everything), you don’t want to get rid of it in some frenzy of so-called cost cutting. But still, it makes me wonder.
Societies develop layers of complexity to solve problems. The thing to keep in mind, however, is the historical fact that every complex civilization that has ever lived on this world has collapsed. Bar none. All societies have come to an end. Cultural anthropologist Joseph Tainter documented this in 1988 in his astonishing book The Collapse of Complex Societies.
That is, as societies become more complex, the costs of meeting new challenges increase. Eventually, every society arrives at a point at which devoting extra resources to meeting new challenges produces diminishing returns. Then negative returns. Along comes a systemic shock. The shock might be internal (resource exhaustion, for example) or external (foreign war, for another example). And the shock triggers collapse. When collapse occurs, it almost always occurs rapidly. Things fall apart and quickly decay to a much lower state of complexity. Societies become less complex by collapsing into smaller, much less complex subgroups.
The Western world — certainly, the U.S. — has spent the past century engaged in an arms race of social complexity. And from where we now stand, there’s no gentle “build-down.” The more people who understand that, the better.
Habemus DOE Chief of Staff
Meanwhile, we have a new U.S. president. You-know-who. And the new president has a new secretary at the Dept. of Energy (DOE), Steven Chu, who received a Nobel Prize in physics. (That’s a refreshing change for the DOE.) And the new DOE secretary has a new chief of staff, Rod O’Connor.
Mr. O’Connor has a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard. And he worked for Al Gore in both the Senate and White House. Mr. O’Connor organized and ran the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles as well as the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. And he was chief of staff of the Democratic National Committee.
I’ve never met Mr. O’Connor. But I have met Joseph Tainter (see above). It seems to me that what we need at DOE is a more of a Rickover man (Hyman Rickover being “the Father of the Nuclear Navy”), not a Gore man whose claim to fame is strong political credentials. So is this a sign of the politicization of energy? I’m shocked. I truly want to see the country do well in the next four years. As a nation, we cannot afford to screw up, either with energy in general or at the Energy Dept. We shall see what happens at DOE. Meanwhile, I hope that Mr. O’Connor reads Mr. Tainter’s book. He can even have my copy. It’s underlined.
Until we meet again,
Byron W. King
February 3, 2009
Byron King
Prior to joining Penny Sleuth, Byron received his Juris Doctor from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, was a cum laude graduate of Harvard University, served on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations and as a field historian with the Navy. Our resident energy and oil expert, Byron is the editor of Outstanding Investments and Energy and Scarcity Investor. Byron has made frequent appearances in mainstream media such as The Washington Post, MSN Money, Marketwatch.com, Fox Business News, CNBC's Squawk Box, Larry Kudlow, Glenn Beck and PBS Newshour. He also had a feature article written in the Financial Times, and has appeared on both CNN and Marketplace radio broadcasts. Byron has also been quoted in various international publications such as The Guardian and De Volkskrant, and has been a guest on Canada's CBC television broadcast.
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Here is the result of a brief exchange between a Shooter and me with regards to Francois’ first shift at the Whiskey Bar.
Well your answer was brilliant, couldn’t have said it better if I tried. Just because the Media has convinced so many mindless mush heads that this guy is going to do anything different doesn’t mean much. It will be very interesting watching these people who thought they were really going to see change face the reality of their mistaken belief’s. Even the most delusional of the bunch will eventually have to admit what a abject failure this administration is. Question is what will the electorate do about it? The Republicans had their chance and made a mess of it. Then these Marxist/Communist will pour some gasoline on the already ragging fire and what will the voting public do to change things then?
I recommend people read George Washington’s Farewell Address which is one of the most amazing things ever written. He was right about political parties and many other things. http://www.earlyamerica.com/ea...../text.html
We need to increase the power of State Legislatures to decrease the amount of harm caused by the federal government. Before Amendment Seventeen was passed, United States Senators were chosen by State Legislatures which gave State Legislatures a say on trade agreements, Treaties, national debt, War, and other topics.
I discuss Amendments that would help State Legislatures reduce the amount of harm caused by the federal government, several ideas dealing with the financial crisis, and other things on
http://www.newgeography.com/users/kenstremsky
http://www.myspace.com/kennethstremsky
I ran for United States Senate in 2002.
I recommend people read
Caesar: A Biography by Christian Meier
The Federalist Papers
John Locke
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Machiavelli’s Discourses which I like more than The Prince
Very good and well said Byron.
The undying fact that seems to maggot it’s way into and under the moral fabric of America is that we just can’t keep our hands off decent and tried economic and political approaches. We Americans are too eager to give some quirk with the ability to shoot the bull, the chance to become our leader. What ever became of issues of morality in our choices of politicians? Where the heck is the attribute known as experience?
Most of our present but ignorant voters chose the inexperienced American President because he appeared to be popular and could eloquently deliver a well rehearsed speech. Man this mentality of appearance, popularity and age worming around by the liberals has thrown some kind of stick in our wheels. America is headed to socialism not because we are bad with the buck but because we have chosen to elect not by experience but popularity and looks. All hail Hollywood, that place in a city in the most radical state in America. Let’s all get together in a pub, watch a movie, a little soccer, football or hockey and discuss just how great the next president is going to look. And, as soon as that President finishes his broadcast on Al-Jazeerah (?) hang around. He is going to discuss the bailout. This is the mentality of fools who don’t give a rat’s behind about the success of America.
[...] Byron King: Unwinding Complexity and the Collapse of Societies My take-away thought about this was how complex our society has become. There are layers upon layers of complexity and astonishing levels of technical expertise. There are so many different organizations, agencies, groupings of people and assemblages of equipment. It all costs a lot of money and consumes a lot of energy. When something dramatic happens, like an airplane crash, it all mobilizes and comes on-site. That’s OK when major disasters are one-off incidents. But what if several incidents occur in short order or close proximity? What happens when money, if not energy, gets scarce? The whole process could get overwhelmed. [...]
[...] Byron King: Unwinding Complexity and the Collapse of Societies My take-away thought about this was how complex our society has become. There are layers upon layers of complexity and astonishing levels of technical expertise. There are so many different organizations, agencies, groupings of people and assemblages of equipment. It all costs a lot of money and consumes a lot of energy. When something dramatic happens, like an airplane crash, it all mobilizes and comes on-site. That’s OK when major disasters are one-off incidents. But what if several incidents occur in short order or close proximity? What happens when money, if not energy, gets scarce? The whole process could get overwhelmed. [...]
[...] King at Whiskey and Gunpowder asks whether our problems could be the result of living in too complex of a world. As we in finance are supposed to know, the more complex the model, the worse the result (garbage [...]
[...] Byron King: Unwinding Complexity and the Collapse of Societies My take-away thought about this was how complex our society has become. There are layers upon layers of complexity and astonishing levels of technical expertise. There are so many different organizations, agencies, groupings of people and assemblages of equipment. It all costs a lot of money and consumes a lot of energy. When something dramatic happens, like an airplane crash, it all mobilizes and comes on-site. That’s OK when major disasters are one-off incidents. But what if several incidents occur in short order or close proximity? What happens when money, if not energy, gets scarce? The whole process could get overwhelmed. [...]