Joseph Tainter
Auteur de The Collapse of Complex Societies
A propos de l'auteur
Œuvres de Joseph Tainter
Evolving Complexity And Environmental Risk In The Prehistoric Southwest - Volume XXIV (1995) 4 exemplaires
Tools to manage the past : research priorities for cultural resources management in the Southwest : symposium… 2 exemplaires
Central New Mexico, Cultural Resources Overview 1 exemplaire
Cultural Resources Overview: Central New Mexico 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Date de naissance
- 1949-12-08
- Sexe
- male
- Nationalité
- USA
Membres
Critiques
Vous aimerez peut-être aussi
Auteurs associés
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 7
- Aussi par
- 1
- Membres
- 655
- Popularité
- #38,517
- Évaluation
- 4.1
- Critiques
- 9
- ISBN
- 14
- Langues
- 4
It's a believable idea. But it's hard for me to grasp the reasons for the inevitability of diminishing marginal returns.
Tainter explains that people grasp for the lower hanging fruit first so what's left after that is harder to get fruit - so you move from high marginal return to lower marginal return. But as a general metaphor for all kinds of processes it's hard to swallow.
- Oil companies develop easier to get oil wells first.
- Education provides general knowledge first which has a higher marginal return than specialized knowledge because it can be applied to more situations.
- Scientists discover easier knowledge first.
- Socio-political structure of a society is less complex first.
I can sense that there is truth to these examples. Over time those processes do seem to become more complicated and brittle. But i also feel like there could be counter examples. What about the notion of critical mass or breakthroughs? Like when you move from coal to oil, isn't there a big spike in marginal utility? I don't know. Perhaps Tainter accounts for such local spikes and talks more about the big picture where the trend is for diminishing.
Besides this complication with diminishing returns I learned a lot from this book. A glimpse into how and why societies are born and collapse.… (plus d'informations)