On The Collapse of Complex Societies

One of the mailing lists that I'm on had a great short essay about the disastrous decision that societies can make - and their consequences. The author is Jared Diamond, who also wrote Guns, Germs and Steel (First Slashdot book review was that book), and is still one of the most interesting books I've read in a while.

Chaos theory of human societies?

[Anonymous Coward]

One butterfly flapping its wings cannot lead to the destruction of the sun. Nature has built in redundancy. So do human societies. Diamond's book (Guns Germ and Steel) is a hodgepodge of deterministic gibberish.

Jared Diamond

[killerfocus]

I go to UCLA and had the unique opportunity to study Guns, Germs, and Steel among other books with Jeffery Miller, pre-eminent microbiologist. A highlight was a guest discussion with Jared. The depth and breadth of his knowledge is amazing, and he is, in my professors words "a national treasure."

Collapses

[gnarly]

Jared Diamond was the speaker at my graduation & I've heard a few of his talks at UCLA. He pointed out that the factor that caused the collapse of both the Easter Island civilization and (probably) the Mayan civilization is now thought to be the same: Logging. Both civilizations overlogged the surrounding forest ecosystems which sustained them, resulting ultimately in a collapse of agriculture. Diamond wondered what might have been going through the mind of the Easter Islander who felled the last tree on the island. He guessed that it might just have been thoughts that would resonate today: "Hey, keeping my job is more important than preserving the environment".

Re:Collapses

[aron_wallaker]

Ever seen the "tree farms" that result when "modern loggin(g) companies" clear cut and replant ? They don't look anything like a natural forest. The clear cut not only kills the large profitable trees, it also kills many smaller flora that are part of the forest ecosystem. Replant small trees and they quickly take over, resulting a new forest with very little diversity but very fast tree growth.

Forest companies at first thought this looked great - the faster tree growth, the sooner we can come back to that piece of land. Unfortunately, and this is supported by studies done by the BC dept. of forestry (which they tried to cover up), the rapid growth of the replanted trees results in much lower density wood than that found in "old-growth" (ie natural) forests. As a result the wood is worth very little to the foresters who planted it and they don't want to log it. Forestry companies continue to push for more "old-growth" forests to be opened up to logging because that's where the best quality wood is, all the replanting that's been done has yet to produce a lumber supply that adequately replaces what has been lost. We may not be as bad as Easter Island, but we're nowhere near sustainability.

2 Key Elements

[4of12]

An intriguing essay and one that most of us ought to ponder as we sit in the here and now, as groups, making decisions, watching things happen, recogizing or ignoring problems.

One thing is that many members of a group don't like to confront problems or issues. Frankly, it's too damn uncomfortable for many people to come face problems whose evident solution may well demand of them that they endure change or discomfort. We're creatures of habit and we don't like change (shoot, some people won't make a change for the better even if you lead them to water), even if events suggest that change might be in our better long-term interest.

Second, groups are composed of individuals with greater and lesser abilities to influence group decision making. For example, decisions by one typical homeless person are less likely to impact the group's overall decisions than are decisions by a large stockholder of Exxon-Mobil, just to take an illustrative example. It turns out that decision makers at EXOM may well perceive threats and benefits differently than the average homeless person, and even differently than an average cross-section of individuals in the group we call society.

From an environmental perspective, beneficiaries of extractive industries don't necessarily feel a balanced level of pain for their actions: some of the consequences won't be felt for a lifetime. (Same deferred consequence problems applies to political decisions in general).

Easter Island's environmental demise probably wasn't accelerated due a few powerful individuals benefitting out of proportion to the changes made to their environment.

But it's certain in our modern industrialized society that some points of view are going to be affected because some individuals will perceive current benefits to outweigh possible long-term adverse consequences. Those individuals have more influence than an average person. They may even be right sometimes in their views. But it's important to know the frame of mind where those views are born.

Re:Stupid decisions?

[JoeBuck]

Wrong: the National Museum drew scholars from all around the world, and in a free society, would be a major tourist attraction. All that money coming in feeds people.

Studies have shown, for example, that New York's art museums contribute far more to New York's economy than all its sports teams combined.

Re:Stupid decisions?

[Jerf]

I'd say that millenia-old artifacts which are our only link to the beginnings of civilization are a little more important than you make them out to be.

You are aware that by saying that, you are claiming that they are more important then the lives saved by both the troops not guarding the museum but doing something more important, and by the oil revenues that will be the salvation of the millions who live in that country?

It's just plain selfish to demand that people give their welfare, food, or even lives for artifacts that you think are important, and I have no respect for people like you, who demand sacrifice (for baubles no less!) from others while you live in comfort, far, far away from the conflict.

Oh, and let's not let the facts about who actually did it, when they did it, and the unlikelihood that anything could have stopped it get in the way. Ironic that the theft of artifacts is the only thing the left is willing to criticize Saddam's administration about, and they still lay the blame on the US, instead of the people who actually did the looting.

In conclusion, you and your misplaced priorities disgust me. People rate over museum collections anyday and it takes a diseased mind to miss that.

The problem is overpopulation.

[reporter]

The underlying problem is overpopulation. If there were only 1 person in this world, he could not damage the earth regardless of how stupid his decisions might be. However, when there are 6 billion people, the cumulative effect of the 6 billion stupid decisions would destroy the earth.

The depletion of fish stock is an excellent example. 6 billion people catching and eating fish every day without regard to the existing fish supplies would deplete the oceans of fish. Even as we speak, several varieties of fish are on the verge of distinction.

The world is overpopulated.

Just broad, long-term examples like this?

[ianscot]

FTA: ...famous collapses such as those of the Anasazi in the U.S. Southwest, Classic Maya civilization in the Yucatan, Easter Island society in the Pacific, Angkor Wat in southeast Asia, Great Zimbabwe in Africa, Fertile Crescent societies, and Harappan Indus Valley societies.

The Easter Islanders' chopping down their forests is the sort of problem that happens across many generations, and "DISASTROUS DECISIONS" (in the essay title) doesn't quite seem to fit. Did they "decide" to do that, in any conscious way? More like a blind spot. (If we overrely on fossil fuels and the world economy collapses by stages in a prolonged, strangling energy crisis, well, we knew we were doing it; that's not the same.)

Same thing with the Norsemen in Iceland: they farmed the way they knew how, not because they made a disastrous "choice" but because they didn't know any better. That one's on a different scale, too; Norse culture as a whole didn't collapse.

Foreign policies are easy to look for decisive short-term blunders in, aren't they? Alcibiades and his generation of Athenian aristocrats basically made two decisions, intended to aggressively assert and expand the Athenian empire, that doomed that empire instead. Their aligning with rebellious Persian satraps caused the Persian king to throw money Sparta's way, and their expeditionary force in eastern Sicily against Syracuse basically cost them their confidence in empire along with the flower of their armed forces. Disastrous choices, made by a few ambitious men.

Or how about the Soviet Union's inability to escape the ruinous arms race with the U.S.? Calamitous decisions, made by a few individuals over a narrow span of years. (Not that I'm exempting Truman from his share of the blame, but still.)

"The past may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme."
-- Mark Twain

Re:Chaos theory of human societies?

[Dyolf Knip]

The probability that a butterfly's actions could cause critical damage to a star is so low as to be totally impossible (i.e., a trllion stars could last a trillion years without it ever happnening once), but that probability is still non-zero. You familiar with the notion that the air in a room might evacuate itself under no force other than a freak concerted motion of the constituent molecules? Same principle. I find it just _slightly_ unlikely that butterfly wings could precipitate a storm that would blow half the atmosphere towards the sun at relativistic speeds, but there's no reason why it couldn't happen.

Re:Fisheries.

[pumpkinescobarsof2]

i am adding this because you made specific reference to the Maritime Provinces of Canada.

to be factual, the resident inshore fishery had identified the problem and made moves to restrict THEIR fishing patterns.

however, our federal gov't. did not see fit (or maybe they simply couldn't) to impose the same restrictions on foreign factory vessels, sitting just outside canadian waters, but still on the Grand Banks.

the effect of this was to make any efforts by the residents to manage their resource of no consequence.

the way this ties into the parent topic is to illustrate that often there is a hierarchy of groups (resident fishers, federal govt's, international institutions) making decisions, often with distinctly different powers and objectives.

so it is entirely possible that the group most affected by a decision will choose the correct course of action and be submarined (pun intended) or over-ruled by a group further up the chain.

Artic Oil

[Camel Pilot]

Failure to solve perceived problems because of conflicts of interest between the elite and the rest of society are much less likely in societies where the elite cannot insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions.

His above comment has particular relevance concerning the North Slope Artic oil fields. The elite (ie those driving suv's in the lower 48) will feel no effect of developing those fields.

Re:It's simple

[sigep_ohio]

I think that points to the conclusion that Humans are social and selfish in nature. We need a social environment or we all kinda go crazy, yet individually we are extremely selfish looking only at what is good for ourselves and not anyone else.

Personally I don't think it is necesarily technology that has amplified this, but the increased number of people. We are much more crowded today than in years past, and in many areas it isn't going to get any better. People need space from each other, but more and more we can't find it. This helps lead to the whole increase in assholes around the world.

It's a flame, but important anyway

[Animats]

First, the article is basically a flame. A well-written flame, but a flame. That's not unusual in what passes for the literary community.

The author complains that history isn't treated as a science, but offers nothing more than anecdotes. What he's groping for is a theory of economic externalities. But he doesn't have one.

Externalities involve unloading some of your costs onto someone else. Pollution is the classic example, as is spam. Windows bugs are another; the costs are borne by users, not Microsoft. A major social question is the extent to which externalities should be accounted for and billed back to the source. Most of the political arguments over "litigation reform" and "deregulation" involve this issue.

Classically, the problem with externalities was that accounting for them was technically difficult and expensive, more expensive than the value of tracking them. In the computer era, this is less of an issue than it used to be. Measuring and tracking things is now a cheap operation. We're seeing some of this, in the form of "road-usage fees". It's still possible for tracking to cost more than the value of the thing being tracked; long-distance phone billing costs more than long-distance call transmission, for example. There's a legitimate economic tradeoff argument.

But mostly, externality issues are resolved by power, not accounting. Understanding this gives one insight into how societies function.

Government corruption corrupts societies.

[Futurepower(R)]

We can study the U.S. society for clues to why societies become self-destructive:

History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories [futurepower.net]

In the case of the U.S. government, the self-destruction seems to be due to government secrecy and to the availability of easy money by fostering corruption.

Question: Shouldn't U.S. vice president Dick Cheney be investigated for using his government influence to make money? Pre-arranged no-bid contracts were given to his former company, Halliburton. In the past such conflict of interest would have resulted in a prison term.

political correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a good read, but I noticed his examples did not touch on many of the more taboo subjects the US faces. For instance I think society should start to think about population control. But that would upset a lot of religious groups, and it will be a huge hurdle to coax society to turn around a system that is currently very skewed towards pro-creation (tax cuts, free schooling, most corporate health plans are by law forced to charge the same for 1 child vs 10 children, etc).

I can think of a bunch of stuff our society currently seems to be heading for trouble in the next 100 years, but I'm fearful to publically express those views, since I would be lynched by political correctness and corporate america(and I'm not even talking about race relations).

But I'm not very worried, since when the going gets bad, society tends to do a hard 180 without many complaints. Look to the history of China and India relating to population control. When the US has 1 billion people, we'll do a sudden 180 as well. Of course, we could soften the blow on many of these issues if we started to tackle them now-- but I do not consider humans as a whole to be that far above the apes on the intelligence chain to claim rational and logical tought.

Re:Fisheries.

[Wyatt Earp]

Then that becomes an act of war.

And with Canada only having an Armored Brigade and half of thier F/A-18s operational right now that would be problematic.

According to the laws governing the sea, a nation has a 12 mile zone of complete control and then psuedo-control over Exclusive Economic Zones, Law Enforcement Interdiction Zones and Fishing Zones and Sea Lanes.

The United States got alot of milage out of sailing into an extended zone Libya claimed and then shooting down planes and sinking ships that came out to shoot at the Navy.

The P-3 Orion the Chinese had a fender-bender with two years ago was out in open sea/air that China claimed was an EEZ. But then China pretty much claims everything down to Singapore as an EEZ.

Re:Chaos theory of human societies?

[cyril3]

Diamond's supposedly "most surprising" revelation is the most obvious one: tragedy of commons. This is old hat.

Diamond does say it is the most surprising reason why groups fail in decision making but he does not finf it surprising because it's a new reason to him. The other three reasons for failure are roughly 1) they didn't anticipate a problem that hadn't yet occurred, 2)they didn't recognize a problem as a problem when it arrived, and 3)they failed to fix the problem after they recognized it.

Diamond says that surprisingly the commonest failure is to not actually do anything to fix a problem after it has been recognized. He uses the tragedy of the commons as an example.

he gives only passing mention to perhaps the biggest problem of all: uncertainty

How can you say this. That's the whole point of his first factor. The first item on my road map is that groups may do disastrous things because they didn't anticipate a problem before it arrived.

Based on the following lie

reconsider Diamond's arguments: it is assumed implicitly that "we" have identified the problems and the main barrier to fixing them is bending individual will to society's best interest

I assume that you aren't at all a McCarthyist but a Randite, which is immeasurably worse. Two of the problem identified by the author explicitly deal with failure to identify the problem and one with failure to solve a problem because of technical shortcomings. And the discussion on the failure to actually do something about identified problems is not actually friendly to the concept of rationality. The tragedy of the commons arises from purely rational actions of individuals. That's one of the problems of rationalism. But you can't attack rationalism can you so you bring the term 'collective rationality' into the discussion as merely a pretext to escalate the rhetoric to "communism". Diamond uses no such term or anything like it in the article which is about failure of group decision making at a societal level.

You know there is nothing in that article that is new. It is all application of standard judgement and decision making theory to problems at a societal level. He could have just as easily spoken about the Bay of Pigs.

Only someone who believes that problems are only allowed to be solved at an individual level because problem solving at a collective level is coercion, could read that article the way you have. For you there is no tragedy of the commons because there would be no commons, someone would own it and be allowed to do with it what they will.

Re:Government corruption corrupts societies.

[Anonymous Coward]

That link and your question are filled with so many lies and distortions that I almost don't know where to start. But it seems the problem basically stems from a lack of understand about how economies and governments work. The oil could've been had without a war; in fact Saddam offered a quid pro quo to the US many times - cheap oil, exclusive contracts for US companies in exchange for a lifting of sanctions. BTW I still don't see any pipelines in Afghanistan much less plans for a pipeline, even by Unocal which scrapped plans for that route.

Halliburton didn't receive a single Iraq reconstruction contract, although they probably will bid for subcontracts. Kellog, Brown and Root (a subsidiary of Halliburton) did get contracts to put out oil fires and repair the oil fields but that work probably won't amount to more than $600 million. [Too bad more wells weren't allowed to be sabatoged eh? That part of the 'conspiracy' didn't work out too well.]

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/030328/iraq_usa_hallibur to n_2.html

Career civil servants at USAID determine who would get contracts and how contracts would be distributed; Cheney has no control over the decision. Frankly, I don't see how anyone would do such huge favor for an old employer since Cheney would recieve no benefit from doing so (he has already divested his stock in Halliburton) unless he goes to work for them afterwards. So your question about a conflict of interest in Cheney allegedly using his influence (he has nothing to do with USAID and if he did exert pressure it would've been leaked by now) to pre-arrange (bids weren't solicited till a couple of months before the war), no-bid contracts (there were 5 bids) to make money (for a former employer without any commensurate compensation) assumes much too much if Cheney were as avaricious as you assume.

Only KBR or Fluor (both have ties to the administration - aw heck all large corporations have ties to the government) and one French company whose name escapes me that could've even done the work. KBR got those contracts because of the exigency of the circumstances and because they're probably the most capable and the largest. If KBR's 7% profit margin holds (after all the subcontracting that will be needed) for the Iraq contracts, the US will have allegedly fought a war for $42 million or less than half of Cheney's net worth. And look at how well reconstruction in Kosovo and Afghanistan are going where competitive bidding is still going on. The US can't afford to let that happen to Iraq.

Question: why do people always believe the worst in everyone else in the most self-righteous manner possible?