civilisation collapse

how I can unify diamond and tainter

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:32:00 +0000

how I can unify diamond and tainter

and recast diamond un active human agency terms - not passive agency

passive human agency: population grew. exhausted resources. collapse.

active human agency: resource extraction costs exceeded margin. collapse.

problem: rapa nui deforestation. can't divide by zero. they removed all the trees. so the cost to remove new ones from nothing is infinite and the margin on that infinite work is nothing.

problem: Chaco canyon drought. no water to remove.

summarize:

diamond: collapse is a result of resource exhaustion

tainter: collapse is a result of margin / profit exhaustion

diamond: why? declining returns per unit of work invested vs unit of resource extracted

tainter: why? declining returns

but why declining returns? exceeded carrying capacity - non sustainable extraction

declining productivity of debt

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:09:00 +0000

first - i plan to lock my mortgage for 10 years.

second - when mortgage brokers show you charts comparing 25 years of fixed rates to variable - you have ask yourself -is the implicit suggestion that the past is going to repeat itself valid and accurate? how comparable were the past 25 to the next 25 years?

here's my thinking:

I am thinking different.

i am thinking about the largest debt the world has ever known.

I am thinking about the trillion dollar bail out package.

I am thinking about the billions spent in Canada.

I am thinking about the legions of unemployed in Canada and the USA.

I am thinking of the foreclosures in the us.

I am thinking that the past 25 years may not be a good guide for the future.

how much more can governments borrow at these rates?

but that's what I am thinking.

I am thinking that rates have never been this low.

I am thinking how much growth does the economy have left?

I am thinking about peak oil.

I am thinking about us companies too big too fail that failed on wall street and in deteroit.

I am thinking about the us fighting expensive wars on two fronts.

I think those 25 year averages are telling a story about past events.

what peaks and valleys correlate with events similar to those that have happened recently?

so what does that 25 year average really tell us?

would that have helped predict or prepare us for this?

check this out - why the next 25 are nothing like the past 25 years.

http://fedupusa.org/2010/03/20/the-most-important-chart-of-the-century/

debt is getting less productive!

joseph tainter predicts this in his 1983 book the collpase of complex societies. his book covers mayans and Romans etc - but the mechanisms are identical.

how is a blog about civilisation collapse related to US real estate?

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:29:00 +0000

how isn't it? for most people, their wealth and resources are stored in their house. when the market value sinks below what they owe their savings are gone.

News: article predicting 7 million home foreclosures has been pulled by MSNBC. The article titled "New Wave of Foreclosures Threatens Market: Up to 7 Million Homes Are Potentially Eligible But Haven’t Been Repossessed" was available at this link - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35832152/ns/business-washington_post//.

Googling the tite - http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=New+wave+of+foreclosures+threatens+market%0AUp+to+7+million+homes+are+potentially+eligible+but+haven%E2%80%99t+been+repossessed - yields several cached copies.

niall ferguson's "America, the fragile empire"

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:23:00 +0000

Read here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ferguson28-2010feb28,0,7706980.story

"If empires are complex systems that sooner or later succumb to sudden and catastrophic malfunctions, what are the implications for the United States today? First, debating the stages of decline may be a waste of time -- it is a precipitous and unexpected fall that should most concern policymakers and citizens. Second, most imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises. Alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly indeed as the United States contemplates a deficit for 2010 of more than $1.5 trillion -- about 11% of GDP, the biggest since World War II."

The question "If empires are complex system that ... malfunction..." rhetorical.

Nothing is stable. Everything decays. Entropy is the law.

Our ancestors are dead. Black holes are the center of galaxies.

Point taken.

joseph tainter transcription from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPUO8pvYfdk

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:37:00 +0000

Joseph Tainter speaks.
from 0:29 seconds:
This is very important.
Energy is ultimately the key to sustainability.

I argue that sustainability is a function of problem solving - of a society's capacity to solve it's problems.

Solving problems is costly - it requires complexity and the complexity has to be ultimately paid for by energy.

Now we sustain our highly complex societies today at levels well beyond what would be possible just with solar energy.

Basically we sustain complexity and we sustain our problem solving capacity today through fossil fuels.

So we maybe facing a real challenge.

Not just that fossil fuels become so expensive that its difficult for people to commute to work or heat their homes. But the high cost and perhaps increasing scarcity of particularly petroleum - liquid fuels - may threaten our ability to be a complex society.

In other words - our capacity to solve problems, to support institutions that can solve the problems that we are facing in the future.

Is Peak Oil Real? A List of Countries Past Peak

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:52:00 +0000

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5576

"Is peak oil real? The BP Statistical Review of World Energy provides the data needed to answer this question. Using the 2009 edition, I have compiled a list of all oil producing countries and regions in the world, along with the production status of each, ordered by year of peak production. BP groups minor producers into categories like "Other Africa", and "Other Middle East", and that notation is used here. All production numbers are quoted in thousands of barrels/day."

Why short the USA? Ready for end?

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:52:00 +0000

Where you want to be?
Friends of mind - peak oil - by net.
The queen died, the harvest failed.
Where did fortune go?
The giants, slain and plundered, bones picked clean.
The queen ran away with the gold.
The king ashamed, tells of her death.
The people starve and fight.

pollution = industrializaton = drop in intelligence

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:56:00 +0000

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/could-air-pollution-be-undermining-our-intelligence/article1229627/

In the first study of its kind, U.S. researchers have found a link between pregnant women being exposed to air pollution and lower IQs of their children.

"This is a warning bell," said the lead author of the study, Frederica Perera, director of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health in New York.

...

At the age of 5, the children were given intelligence quotient tests. The study showed that the children of mothers exposed to the highest level of PAHs had IQ scores that were between 4.3 and 4.6 points lower than kids whose moms had the least pollution exposure.

how can civilisation collapse? that implies it had risen

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:41:00 +0000

how can civilisation collapse? that implies it had risen.

where are the signs of rising?

- iraq invasion?
- exxon valdez crash?
- enron?
- bernie madoff?
- goldman sachs?
- monsanto?
- haliburton / kbr?
- nagasaki / hiroshima?
- vietnam / napalm?

Stem Rust - Wheat killer

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:53:00 +0000

Agweek - publishes a cover story about stem rust - Ug99 and the race to find a cure.

Wheat collapse

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:32:00 +0000

A 'time bomb' for world wheat crop - Los Angeles Times: http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/14/science/sci-wheat-rust14

Wikipedia entry on Stem Rust: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_rust

the center can not hold

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:38:00 +0000

the center can not hold
things fall apart

i have everything i want
i have nothing

outside all is well
inside self respect is not home

what do you expect from others?
it all starts at home

a new view of where i am

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 06:03:00 +0000

a new view of where i am

- the world is infinite
-- endless possibility

- the world is threatened
-- overwhelming disaster

- the roots of that disaster
--get used to the bell curve

- it's an illusion
-- the world is infinite

abandonment

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:56:00 +0000

growth. i knew the word but didn't know what it meant. i was grown. done. mature.

when i thought of movies, stories i wanted to tell - i could not manage character development. it was alien.

instead there was just being - just events - just existence.

but - somewhere somewhy somehow something is different.

and. i. guess. love. lead. me. to. it. (i am more comfortable with the periods.)

the conclusion is i haven't been able to acknowledge my father's abandonment (i was 8 when my parents divorced) and identify myself as a worthwhile person.

so - i have broken lots (sigh! - no wonder i love Elizabeth Bishop's One Art) of good things along the way to preserve this broken thing.

but finally i am not abraham.

i have sacrificed many other lives - and myself - but i can't kill my children.

my love for them - meaning i want to manufacture the best possible gene delivery systems - has lead me to open doors i haven't wanted to open for 30 years.

my life. tainter's work.

my family collapsed when the my parents investment in the marriage reached a point of diminishing marginal returns.

third industrial revolution?

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:59:00 +0000

third industrial revolution around the corner?

after reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression:

"The Long Depression was a depression that affected much of the world and was contemporary with the Second Industrial Revolution."

it made me use my magical thinking (http://warsocialism.com/e1.html) to imagine that if we are having a depression now - surely another industrial revolution will follow.

what could it be?

- stem cell research
- renewable energy sources
- nanotech

and what about the unintended consequences of these? the 2nd industrial revolution did nothing to disprove malthus' dismal science - how could the 3rd industrial revolution be different?

might not the third industrial revolution be the disintermediating power of the internet?

the internet gives me access to the productive capacity of the worlds factories and employees.

Göbekli Tepe carvings speak to me

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 05:32:00 +0000

Göbekli Tepe carvings speak to me

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/gobekli-tepe.html?c=y&page=2

"What was so important to these early people that they gathered to build (and bury) the stone rings? The gulf that separates us from Gobekli Tepe's builders is almost unimaginable. Indeed, though I stood among the looming megaliths eager to take in their meaning, they didn't speak to me. They were utterly foreign, placed there by people who saw the world in a way I will never comprehend. There are no sources to explain what the symbols might mean."

Can't understand??

We are still the same - our need for symbols is the same. The symbols are even the same - The Chicago Bulls? The American Eagle? Puma Brand running shoes? The astrologers predictions are still printed daily in newspapers for Taurus the Bull.

Read "where the wild things are" by maurice sendak. a boy is sent to bed without supper. in his imagination he becomes king of the wild things. and he has power over them and the obey him.

does not carving these animals into the stone give us power over them?

does it not speak to our need to have power over the wild things? to have power over the powerful things?

consider the desire to buried in a coffin that is shaped like a mercedes:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/africanlives/ghana/ghana.htm

also referenced in African Folklore By Philip M. Peek, Kwesi Yankah:

"When an onion farmer passed away, he might find his last resting place in an onion-shaped coffin, while an important or wealthy man might repose in a wooden Mercedes."

Is this not a form of aspirational marketing?

or how about cargo cults? are we so distant? don't we want to wear fake rolexes? drive big cars and live in fancy houses in the hope that we will be important and lead more meaningful and valuable lives?

"In attempts to get cargo to fall by parachute or land in planes or ships again, islanders imitated the same practices they had seen the soldiers, sailors, and airmen use. They carved headphones from wood and wore them while sitting in fabricated control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses. The cult members thought that the foreigners had some special connection to the deities and ancestors of the natives, who were the only beings powerful enough to produce such riches."

or http://mikejay.net/articles/the-last-cargo-cult/ from encounters with people who were living as they had lived from the stone age...

"‘Cargo cults’ got into full swing during the 1950s, though once the phenomenon had been classified by Westerners it seemed that the beginnings of the movement could be traced way back, as far as the 1890s. The classic account was by the Australian anthropologist Peter Lawrence who went out to the Madang district of New Guinea in 1949 to conduct field research into the traditional social relations of people who, despite colonial rule, were still living much as they had in the recent Stone Age."

"...the Minister of Health has a robust response. He insists not just that John Frum is a cargo cult no longer, but that it never was one in the first place. “We Tannese knew about God before the missionaries came. Of course we knew that there was a creator, who made all this. But the whites could never understand that there could be a revelation for the black man, a messiah for man Tanna. They could only imagine it had to be about their consumer goods. Cargo is not our obsession, it’s the white man’s.” And the American flags, the parade we’ve just witnessed? “This is not about waiting for cargo to come from America. This is a reminder of our history. The Americans helped us, they freed our leaders from the colonial jails.” It’s true that the US Army treated the islanders far better than the colonial rulers, paying far above the standard wage and dispensing free Red Cross aid, but the nature of the alliance between the John Frum Movement and the Marines is less than clear. This being the 21st century, the Minister of Health intends to set the record straight in the near future on the Vanuatu government website."

Which brings us to animism:

"It is not surprising to find that many peoples respect and even worship animals (see totem or animal worship), often regarding them as relatives. It is clear that widespread respect was paid to animals as the abode of dead ancestors, and much of the cults to dangerous animals is traceable to this principle; though we need not attribute an animistic origin to it."

and finally to the reason why the author has so much trouble - animal worship is absent from our daily lives now.

"When a god is respected or worshipped by means of a representative animal, an animal cult is formed (Teeter et al., 2002, p. 355). The origin of such cults developed from a distinction that primitive man lacked between animals and humanity (Raglan, 1935, p. 331). This lack of discernment caused humans to look upon animals as equals. Therefore, it was just as simple for them to represent their gods in an animal form as opposed to a human form because in primitive man’s judgment animals and human were equal (Gilbert, Qtd. in Raglan, 1935, p. 331)."

the beginning of civilisation - Göbekli Tepe

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 07:07:00 +0000

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/gobekli-tepe.html?c=y&page=1

'To Schmidt and others, these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization. Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled communities did they have the time, organization and resources to construct temples and support complicated social structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid the groundwork for the development of complex societies.'

Interesting theory - but why?

What was the problem building temples solved?

Why was building temples cheaper than the alternative? what was that alternative?

'Hodder is fascinated that Gobekli Tepe's pillar carvings are dominated not by edible prey like deer and cattle but by menacing creatures such as lions, spiders, snakes and scorpions. "It's a scary, fantastic world of nasty-looking beasts," he muses. While later cultures were more concerned with farming and fertility, he suggests, perhaps these hunters were trying to master their fears by building this complex, which is a good distance from where they lived.'

What are other hunter-gatherer's carving?

West Coast Aboriginal carvings are orca, wolf, bear, and raven clans.

Are these animals not successful guides for hunters to follow?

"Schmidt is betting that beneath the floors he'll find the structures' true purpose: a final resting place for a society of hunters."

pictures of Göbekli Tepe

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:51:00 +0000

pictures:
http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/turkey.html

http://www.panoramio.com/map/#lt=37.223003&ln=38.922364&z=4&k=2&a=1

http://www.balkantravellers.com/en/read/article/1029

Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU2qwoMfq-U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBfxUq6Z1KM

Where is Göbekli Tepe?

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:39:00 +0000

My map here http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=
112331474791804750058.00046445566d01d5487be

The Google Earth/World Atlas users find the site at 37.223300N, 38.922400E.
There are also photos accessible through the Google Earth interface).

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=37.222653,38.922082&spn=0.002332,0.004629&t=h&z=18&msid=112331474791804750058.00046445566d01d5487be

Göbekli Tepe

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 04:23:00 +0000

Göbekli Tepe

Klaus Schmidt:
http://www.dainst.org/index_642_en.html

EDEN?

http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/449/gobekli_tepe_paradise_regained.html

'Gobekli Tepe is staggeringly ancient. Carbon dating of organic matter adhering to the megaliths shows that the complex is 12,000 years old. That is to say, it was built around 10,000–9,000 BC. By comparison, Stonehenge was built around 2,000–2,500 BC. Prior to the discovery and dating of Gobekli Tepe, the most ancient megalithic complex was thought to be in Malta, dated around 3,500BC."
Schmidt’s thesis has supporting data. In the latest season of digging, his team have found human bones in soils that once filled the niches behind the megaliths. “I believe the ancient hunters brought the corpses of relatives here, and installed them in the open niches by the stones. The corpses were then excarnated: picked clean by wild animals.'

'There is more evidence that Gobekli had a religious purpose: the circular arrangement of the stones echoes much later Neolithic temples, like Stonehenge and Avebury. The many rock carvings on the stones also appear much more ritualistic than domestic.'

'Sipping his tea, Schmidt elaborates: “So many of the carvings seem to celebrate the chase – we have found many images of prey, of boars, foxes and gazelles; also images of ducks being hunted with nets. Gobekli Tepe was probably a site for funerals, but it was also a place to celebrate the life of the hunter, and the hunt itself.”'

'Schmidt and I descend a ladder to the floor of the dig, where the ancient dust is banked against the T-stones. He continues: “The really strange thing is that in 8,000BC, during the shift to agriculture, Gobekli Tepe was buried. I mean deliberately – not in a mudslide. For some reason the hunters, or the ex-hunters, decided to entomb the entire site in soil. The earth we are removing from the stones was put here by man himself: all these hills are artificial.”'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1157784/Do-mysterious-stones-mark-site-Garden-Eden.html

Cayonu is not Göbekli Tepe

but the article talks about Cayonu as a way to explain why Göbekli Tepe might have been buried:

A few years ago, archaeologists at nearby Cayonu unearthed a hoard of human skulls. They were found under an altar-like slab, stained with human blood.

No one is sure, but this may be the earliest evidence for human sacrifice: one of the most inexplicable of human behaviours and one that could have evolved only in the face of terrible societal stress.

Experts may argue over the evidence at Cayonu. But what no one denies is that human sacrifice took place in this region, spreading to Palestine, Canaan and Israel.

Archaeological evidence suggests that victims were killed in huge death pits, children were buried alive in jars, others roasted in vast bronze bowls.

the conquest of the visigoths of spain - and the conquest of montezuma and the mexica

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 04:20:00 +0000

the conquest of the visigoths of spain by tariq - and the conquest of montezuma and the mexica by Cortes

what do they have in common?

tariq ordered his ships burned to help conquer spain for islam

cortes ordered his ships burned to help conquer the new world for spain

i wonder how he got that idea...

sign of civilisation collapse - shrinking food / energy for peasants

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 08:47:00 +0000

1. shrinking energy for peasants

http://www.bnd.com/sports/columnists/story/654250.html

Average worker paychecks are worth less now than in 1973, but CEOs and other rich Americans not only make much more, they pay less in taxes.
Click here to find out more!

Average full-time workers made $41,198 in 1973 and $37,606 in 2008, adjusted for inflation.

CEOs made 45 times as much as workers in 1973 and more than 300 times as much as workers now. The top tax rate was 70 percent in 1973 and just 35 percent now; taxpayers pay the top rate on the portion of taxable income that falls within the highest bracket and pay lower rates on income below that. The top rate for capital gains on the sale of stock and other assets was 36.5 percent in 1973 and 15 percent now.

Irrational pay and tax cuts have generated a massive redistribution of income and wealth from workers to CEOs, hedge fund managers and others in the richest 1 percent.

By 2006, the richest 1 percent had increased their share of the nation's income to the second-highest level on record. The only year higher was 1928 - on the eve of the Great Depression.

2. consider the mayan's

from Tainter's the collapse of complex socities page 174 - "By about A.D. 1 marked stature differences had developed at Tikal between tomb (higher status) and non-tomb (lower status) segments of the population. By the Early Classic tomb populations averaged seven centimeters taller, suggesting preferential access by the elites to nutritional resources during the childhood growth years. Yet during the Late Classic both groups were affected by the stresses of the time."

3. in light Joseph Tainter laws - how does this relate to collapse?

from Tainter's the collapse of complex socities page 175:

Ever increasing investments in warfare, complexity, monumental construction, and agricultural intensification yielded no proportionately increasing returns in the health and nutritional status of the populace.

...as the demands on the support population increased the benefits accruing to that population actually declined.

sign of civilisation collapse - abandoned houses (farms)

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 07:55:00 +0000

Q: How is a house like a farm? How does it produce an income?
A: When I flip it or when I rent it to tenants.

1. abandoned houses (farms)

http://www.mint.com/blog/finance-core/modern-day-ghost-towns-of-abandoned-real-estate/

The cities here aren’t entirely deserted, of course, but they are examples of the cities that have been hit hard enough to lead residents to abandon their homes.

Riverside County, California
...these houses were purchased by many people who wanted to buy bigger homes for the buck than they could get in LA and the OC, which of course led to an increase in speculative building and investing. It is estimated that in 2005, only 15% of area homeowners could actually afford their houses, with the remaining 85% living beyond their means or in adjustable rate mortgages that had not yet adjusted. The latter, once adjusted, would then prove to be unaffordable.

North Los Angeles County, California
...Today, in Antelope Valley, for example, it is not unusual for long-term rental property owners to have to deal with tenants who recently lost their own home to foreclosure and are having difficulty getting back on their feet. In some cases, tenants do everything from the typical stripping of copper wire to be sold to the more bizarre use of cabinets for firewood.

Phoenix, Arizona
...Understandably, home owners are deciding to walk from their mortgages if the home they just agreed to buy for $350,000 is now only worth $270,000. As a result of the frustration, homeowners are removing everything they can from the homes before they abandon them, selling appliances, cupboards and virtually everything else, including the kitchen sink.

2. consider the Roman's

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/schmidt8.html

In the West, population declined in the countryside as farms were abandoned and become unprofitable due to onerous taxation, this population decline coming before the collapse. When the empire was no longer able to control its borders due to lack of funding for troops (and diminished population of citizens), it hired German mercenaries paid with land. Eventually, with nothing gained from central control and no order supplied therefrom, the Romans suffered a "crisis of legitimacy of the state," and the last emperor was retired by Gothic tribes.

3. in light Joseph Tainter laws - how does this relate to collapse?

- a reduction in complexity - a collapse - is more economical
- the home owners experience negative returns on increased investments in complexity
- from Tainter's the collapse of complex societies page 145 - "In some provinces under Valens (364-78) from 1/3 to 1/2 of arable lands were abandoned."

sign of civilisation collapse - military path to citizenship

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 07:23:00 +0000

1. U.S. Military Will Offer Path to Citizenship

“The Army will gain in its strength in human capital,” General Freakley said, “and the immigrants will gain their citizenship and get on a ramp to the American dream.”

...

Recruiters’ work became easier in the last few months as unemployment soared and more Americans sought to join the military. But the Pentagon, facing a new deployment of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, still has difficulties in attracting doctors, specialized nurses and language experts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/us/15immig.html

2. consider the Roman's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_citizenship

Socii
Further information: Foederati, Social War, and Lex Julia

Socii or Foederati were citizens of states which had treaty obligations with Rome, typically agreements under which certain legal rights of the state's citizens under Roman law were exchanged for agreed upon levels of military service, i.e. the Roman magistrates had the right to levy soldiers for the Roman legions from those states. However, Foederati states that had at one time been conquered by Rome were exempt from payment of tribute to Rome due to their treaty status.

3. in light Joseph Tainter laws - how does this relate to collapse?

- why are volunteer numbers down?
- the return on the investment of volunteering for the army is no longer sufficient for us citizens
- so US citizens will no longer fight for the republic because they don't support what it stands for?
- are these new recruits not mercenaries?
- Tainter's the collapse of complex societies - page 144 - "the increases in military strength... had to be supported by an already depleted population."
- historically hasn't it been impossible for a mercenary forces to beat freedom fighters?
-- the greeks fighting for the egyptians
-- the germanic tribes fighting for the romans
-- perhaps the hessians fighting for the british

- http://www.artwoo.com/article/the-roman-army-in-the-late-empire
The empire had now expanded and subjugated many territories and people, and with that came the recruitment of non-Romans into the army. It helped appease and control the newly won areas by offering citizenship at the end of a military career.
...
This in the end, as we will see, directly contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire.

>From the start of the empire to the end, the army steadily became more culturally diversified. By the third and fourth century, the army increasingly relied on employed barbarians and allies to do the fighting, instead of training the vast population of Roman citizens. The army became more of a “mercenary” body, as the number of allied troops outnumbered the Roman ones. This diluted the once proud and powerful army into a mixture of unreliable troops.

modern monumental architecture - nuclear weapons

noreply@blogger.com (joshua paul) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:57:00 +0000

joseph tainter in his 1988 classic "the collapse of complex societies" discusses, who mayan society, in the absence of large standing armies, may have used monumental architecture as a deterrent.

monumental architecture meaning the pyramids.

in modern day terms, the nuclear weapon stockpiles save similar purposes.

demonstrations of awesome power, which consumed vast amounts of elite resources with no economic benefit, with the sole purpose to frighten and intimidate the enemy from attacking and causing an economically ruinous war.