Digital infrastructure "moving beyond human control&

[biffvernon]

That's a mostly useless relational graph though based as it is on a conjecture rather than data.

Doesn't Joseph Tainter's book contain many examples of declining benefits of complexity after a certain level? It's certainly not just conjecture.

I could certainly think of several examples. It's when they reach C4 that it gets interesting.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

That's a mostly useless relational graph though based as it is on a conjecture rather than data.

Doesn't Joseph Tainter's book contain many examples of declining benefits of complexity after a certain level? It's certainly not just conjecture.

Unless he's managed to find a sold method to measure societal complexity and the benefits of that complexity then all the graph does is serve to illustrate his idea. Thus it is just conjecture.

Greer runs a useful critique of Tainter in The Long Descent.

The field though is all rather general and lacking in any ability to predict with something approaching precision.

[Little John]

That's a mostly useless relational graph though based as it is on a conjecture rather than data.

Doesn't Joseph Tainter's book contain many examples of declining benefits of complexity after a certain level? It's certainly not just conjecture.

Unless he's managed to find a sold method to measure societal complexity and the benefits of that complexity then all the graph does is serve to illustrate his idea. Thus it is just conjecture.

Greer runs a useful critique of Tainter in The Long Descent.

The field though is all rather general and lacking in any ability to predict with something approaching precision.

Lack of capacity to be precise, though, should not necessarily be a bar to study of a given phenomenon.

[kenneal - lagger]

How many carbons do you reckon you could get in that machine, Steve? Just thinking for Powerswitch when the internet goes down!!

Any one got a large book of stamps?:shock:

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Lack of capacity to be precise, though, should not necessarily be a bar to study of a given phenomenon.

Absolutely.

I suppose one of the biggest stumbling blocks with Tainter et al is the ability to define 'civilisation'. For instance we all 'know' that the Dark Ages after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire were, well, nasty and brutish
Only the weren't. For the majority of people alive at the time I doubt the world changed much at all.

Civilisation tends to be defined by academics who study history through works of art or literature. I've nothing against Plato for instance but was he really any better than a Welsh bard of who we know nothing just because his works survived?

Waldemar Januszczak's The Dark Ages takes a similar view and is well worth your time.

[Little John]

Lack of capacity to be precise, though, should not necessarily be a bar to study of a given phenomenon.

Absolutely.

I suppose one of the biggest stumbling blocks with Tainter et al is the ability to define 'civilisation'. For instance we all 'know' that the Dark Ages after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire were, well, nasty and brutish
Only the weren't. For the majority of people alive at the time I doubt the world changed much at all.

Civilisation tends to be defined by academics who study history through works of art or literature. I've nothing against Plato for instance but was he really any better than a Welsh bard of who we know nothing just because his works survived?

Waldemar Januszczak's The Dark Ages takes a similar view and is well worth your time.

I agree with your problem with a lot of academic definitions of civilisation that are based on artistic and cultural items. These are merely artefacts of particular types of civilisation.

For me, civilisation started and is defined by the first major surpluses that came into being around the time we started farming, at which point the extortion gangs moved in and started creaming a few percent off the top of everyone else’s surpluses. They then used this wealth to finance the building of the structures of that thing we call "civilisation; judiciary, armies, penal systems, organised religion and all the rest.

[RenewableCandy]

A fairly solid marker for Complexity in a given civilisation is, the number of differennt roles (jobs) that people have, that are required to support it.

[vtsnowedin]

To me a mark of civilization is the relief from the necessity of personally defending yourself ,family and possessions from whomever comes down the road next. It is very hard to farm if you have to carry a sword or spear at all times, and pointless to plow and plant if the first strongman to come along can and will steal your crop come harvest time. Better to pay your taxes to "His lordship” and have his troops or sheriffs keep order so you can grow your crops in peace and be secure in your remainder share.
Detroit today is becoming less and less civilized.

[Little John]

To me a mark of civilization is the relief from the necessity of personally defending yourself ,family and possessions from whomever comes down the road next. It is very hard to farm if you have to carry a sword or spear at all times, and pointless to plow and plant if the first strongman to come along can and will steal your crop come harvest time. Better to pay your taxes to "His lordship” and have his troops or sheriffs keep order so you can grow your crops in peace and be secure in your remainder share.
Detroit today is becoming less and less civilized.

V, the state is just the strongman who bet off all the rest. In other words, that last man standing. The fact that the state protects you is just a very big protection racket. Those first extortion gangs in the very earliest days of the first surpluses would, no doubt, have promised to "protect" the farmer so long as he paid them their "dues" once a year.

Don't misunderstand me, I would rather that protection racket was operated by the state as opposed to the local gangster. But, make no mistake, it's the same game, just played bigger that's all.

Don't believe me? Stop paying your taxes and other dues to the state and see how long it takes before men with guns come and take you away as well as divest you of all you own.

[vtsnowedin]

To me a mark of civilization is the relief from the necessity of personally defending yourself ,family and possessions from whomever comes down the road next. It is very hard to farm if you have to carry a sword or spear at all times, and pointless to plow and plant if the first strongman to come along can and will steal your crop come harvest time. Better to pay your taxes to "His lordship” and have his troops or sheriffs keep order so you can grow your crops in peace and be secure in your remainder share.
Detroit today is becoming less and less civilized.

V, the state is just the strongman who bet off all the rest. In other words, that last man standing. The fact that the state protects you is just a very big protection racket. Those first extortion gangs in the very earliest days of the first surpluses would, no doubt, have promised to "protect" the farmer so long as he paid them their "dues" once a year.

Yes Steve you rail about big bad government, Corporate monopolies and corrupt "Banksters" ad nauseum. We hear you. OK! So move somewhere where there isn't any of that. Somalia perhaps. See how you like it and get back to us if your alive to tell the tail.

[kenneal - lagger]

.................. Better to pay your taxes to "His lordship” and have his troops or sheriffs keep order so you can grow your crops in peace and be secure in your remainder share.
...................

V, the state is just the strongman who bet off all the rest. In other words, that last man standing. The fact that the state protects you is just a very big protection racket. Those first extortion gangs in the very earliest days of the first surpluses would, no doubt, have promised to "protect" the farmer so long as he paid them their "dues" once a year.

Don't misunderstand me, I would rather that protection racket was operated by the state as opposed to the local gangster. But, make no mistake, it's the same game, just played bigger that's all.

Don't believe me? Stop paying your taxes and other dues to the state and see how long it takes before men with guns come and take you away as well as divest you of all you own.

Am I mistaken or have you both written the same thing and now one is arguing with the other about it? Or am I misreading something here?

[Little John]

.................. Better to pay your taxes to "His lordship” and have his troops or sheriffs keep order so you can grow your crops in peace and be secure in your remainder share.
...................

V, the state is just the strongman who bet off all the rest. In other words, that last man standing. The fact that the state protects you is just a very big protection racket. Those first extortion gangs in the very earliest days of the first surpluses would, no doubt, have promised to "protect" the farmer so long as he paid them their "dues" once a year.

Don't misunderstand me, I would rather that protection racket was operated by the state as opposed to the local gangster. But, make no mistake, it's the same game, just played bigger that's all.

Don't believe me? Stop paying your taxes and other dues to the state and see how long it takes before men with guns come and take you away as well as divest you of all you own.

Am I mistaken or have you both written the same thing and now one is arguing with the other about it? Or am I misreading something here?

Nope you are quite correct.

[emordnilap]

Orlov is good on the subject, balancing the pros and cons of big brother v big, ermm, godfather and 'communities that abide'; TFSOC is well worth buying, reading, reading again, then passing it on.

[Mr. Fox]

A fairly solid marker for Complexity in a given civilisation is, the number of differennt roles (jobs) that people have, that are required to support it.

That's pretty much as Tainter has it:

Complexity is generally understood to refer to such things as the size of a society, the number and distinctiveness of its parts, the variety of specialized social roles that it incorporates, the number of distinct social personalities present, and the variety of mechanisms for organizing these into a coherent, functioning whole. (ibid p.23)

So it's not just the various Javascript Monkeys etc, but also the machines they must use.

I saw today that the new Cambridge 'Centre for the Study of Existential Risk' has at the very top of it's website the line:

Many scientists are concerned that developments in human technology may soon pose new, extinction-level risks to our species as a whole.

First 'Blackout' and now this???

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Having recently been reminded of the 1965 the Paul Harvey Freedom To Chains broadcast I am minded to go with his thinking in that complexity can be judged by comparing the amount of people that are taxed to those who live from that taxation.

A hollow civilisation.