Collapse of Complex Societies by Dr. Joseph Tainter

Tainter's theory of collapse is very important.



The example of Roman expansion: conquest phases usually don't last long. An expanding empire runs out of profitable conquests. Afterwards, an imperial structure built on the income of conquest had to sustain itself on yearly solar energy production.

Tainter also talks about economists and their belief in the principle of infinite sustainability, which is relevant to our earlier discussion of EROEI. Essentially, economists believe that as resources become scarce and rise in price, the market signals will always result in innovation and new technological substitutes.

Tainter's "major future challenges", which will need to be solved nearly simultaneously:

• funding retirements for the baby boom generation
• increasing cost of health care
• replacing old infrastructure
• adapting to climate change [dubious]
• developing new sources of energy
• [possibly] escalating military costs
• diminishing return on investment in innovation