Prophezeiungen zum aktuellen Weltgeschehen: Ursachen des Niedergangs (nach Beesley und Widdowson, Andreas am 06.4.2003 19:28

Ursachen des Niedergangs (nach Beesley und Widdowson

Geschrieben von Andreas am 06. April 2003 19:28:41:

Proximate causes of decline

Mismanagement

Complex societies are difficult to understand and difficult to control. No one really knows what effects a particular
law or tax will have. We are all familiar with the law of unintended consequences, where some measure has the opposite
effect to that intended. This results from, among other things, the existence of poorly understood feedback loops
among the institutions of an ensemble. The overall effect is that goverments are always at risk of taking decisions
that propel their societies towards disasters. At the time, those decisions will have seem to be highly sensible
and logical. In retrospect, their flaws will be apparent to all.

Decadence

Decadence implies that people stop practising the virtues that led their society to high levels of integration,
organisation and cohesion.

Political decadence

Having achieved peace and order, people become more concerned with their rights; they become insubordinate;
the government finds it harder to push through unpopular measures.

Economic decadence

Having achieved comfortable lifestyles, people become resistant to innovation; they prefer to enjoy their wealth
than to work hard at creating more.

Social decadence

Having achieved success, people lose interest in religion (they do not need its solace); they are less tolerant
of misfortune and more selfish; the attitudes that led to success are de-legitimised.

External factors

Sometimes blows from outside can bring down a society that is complex and fragile. These include:

Invasion by less privileged peoples, attracted
by the society's wealth and good order

Disease--new ones emerge from time to time and
can be devastating

Environmental change--cooling or drought can make
a society fail

These are, however, the least important explanations
of decline. They really do harm only when mismanagement and decadence have already diminished a society's resilience.

Ultimate causes of decline

Contradictions

Successful societies find themselves increasingly protecting what they have already achieved, with less effort
to expend on further progress; their very success attracts challengers, and it is difficult to stop their secrets
leaking away; the technologies and institutions that help a society towards success also help those who would destroy
it (e.g. the Roman peace facilitated the spread of Christianity, which was hostile to traditional Roman values);
ascendancy means that actors are relieved of the individually borne costs of integration, organisation and cohesion,
but can still enjoy the global benefits.

Ambitions & capacities

Ascendancy permits the proliferation of overheads, i.e. institutions and activities that are considered necessary
but tend to be ineffective at strengthening political, economic and social relationships; people do not accept
that a certain level of welfare is sufficient and no more is needed; the more that is done, the more the demand
goes out for further improvements; ambitions and aspirations ratchet upwards; however, the capacity to satisfy
those ambitions does not grow so inexorably; organisation and integration are in continual flux; they are threatened
by decadence and mismanagement; eventually a collision between ambitions and capacities is inevitable; that produces
not a gentle adjustment but a crisis of confidence; aspirations are disappointed, the system loses legitimacy and
collapse ensues.

Non-problems

The above model has explained decline and dark ages in terms of the logic of human relationships. Many contemporary
predictions of a coming social catastrophe rely on quite different kinds of explanation. They include the following:

Humanity's rapidly growing numbers may soon exceed
what the planet can support.

Some kind of vital resource, such as oil, may
finally be exhausted.

Society may break down because new technology
will make too many people idle and purposeless.

Human activity is damaging the environment and
may undermine the basis of productive activity.

Some of these concerns are quite ancient. They appear to have an obvious logic and they are readily believed
in by ordinary people. Yet appearances can be deceptive. No historical society has ever declined solely from such
causes, even if they have been relevant at all.

Population

People speak of the 'population explosion' as a disaster in the making. Yet population growth has always been
associated with improvements in the human condition. Societies have always been capable of limiting their numbers
and have only allowed them to grow when it has become possible to support a higher population. For example, the
first population explosion occurred around the time of adoption of agriculture, when human numbers took off on
the basis of a more assured food supply. Population growth means that there are more people enjoying life expectancies.
It can only be regarded, other than by misanthropists, as a fundamental good. The latest population explosion is
the legacy of the industrial revolution. It is the fact that population growth is now tailing off that shows that
the present round of human achievement is exhausting its potential. When, in a new era, humans conquer the other
planets, problems of living space will become irrelevant.

Resources

It seems obvious that if you keep taking stuff out of the ground, you will eventually run out. Yet, as the economist
Julian Simon has pointed out, the cost of every natural resource has decreased over recorded history, showing
that resources tend to become less scarce--affront to common sense though that may be. Simon points out
the role of what he calls the ultimate resource, i.e. human ingenuity, which allows people to exploit new
materials or find new ways of exploiting old materials. R Buckminster Fuller also pointed out the phenomenon of
ephemeralisation, whereby new technologies tend to reduce the pressure on resources--for example, today's
mobile phone is less demanding of energy and raw materials than its bulky predecessor, while being vastly more
capable. In any case, humanity has just scratched the surface of part of one planet in the solar system. The supposed
problem of running out of resources is a pure myth and fantasy.

Technology

It seems obvious that labour-saving technologies must put people out of work, especially the less capable people
who are capable of doing only manual labour. On these grounds, many people opposed the introduction of the motor
car as threatened all those whose living relied on horse drawn carriages (from stablemen to those who scooped up
horse droppings from the street). Yet the motor car has created far more jobs than it ever took away. The problem
is a static view of the world, seeing only the harm that is done to the existing order and not the benefits
of doing things in a different way. Technological improvements have always been associated with growth in human
numbers. Despite all the hyperbolic claims for artificial intelligence, we are still a long way from creating a
machine as flexible as a human being--even the least capable of them.

Environment

People readily believe in the notion of environmental determinism, i.e. that a society's fortunes depend on
the climate. Westerners for example are easily convinced that the heat and humidity of the world's tropical zones
is responsible for the laziness and underachievement of the people who live there. This is despite the underachievement
of the temperate zones for the first 4000 years of recorded history and the fact that the west owes all its basic
knowledge to people who once lived in those hot and humid places. Modern Singapore has become a prosperous society
despite heat, humidity and the need to import every vital resource, including water. To be sure, climate has an
effect on social phenomena--droughts cause hardship and damage the economy--but there is no straightforward correlation.
People can overcome climatic problems and do not necessarily succumb to them in a feeble manner. As for worries
about climate change, the fact is that climate has been changing, often dramatically, since time immemorial. The
thing is to adapt to it, not try and prevent it--which would be impossible. Historically, periods of cooling have
been regarded as the problem and warming as a desirable amelioration. The current environmentalist perception of
warming as a problem is simply perverse. Europe was extensively deforested in early modern times and there is very
little natural about the landscape whatsoever. Yet the planet has not suffered any obvious adverse consequences
and Europe is a perfectly pleasant environment in which to live. It may also be noticed that there has been a great
improvement in the environment over the last few decades, with fish returning to once poisoned rivers and city
smogs a thing of the past. People can solve the problems of pollution by moving forward with new inventions, successfully
exploiting what environmentalists disparagingly call the technological fix. As recent history shows, technological
fixes work.

Antworten:

Wessen Niedergangs??? Skaari 06.4.2003 20:37 (1)

Allgemeine Mechanismen franke43 07.4.2003 10:42 (0)

Population	People speak of the 'population explosion' as a disaster in the making. Yet population growth has always been associated with improvements in the human condition. Societies have always been capable of limiting their numbers and have only allowed them to grow when it has become possible to support a higher population. For example, the first population explosion occurred around the time of adoption of agriculture, when human numbers took off on the basis of a more assured food supply. Population growth means that there are more people enjoying life expectancies. It can only be regarded, other than by misanthropists, as a fundamental good. The latest population explosion is the legacy of the industrial revolution. It is the fact that population growth is now tailing off that shows that the present round of human achievement is exhausting its potential. When, in a new era, humans conquer the other planets, problems of living space will become irrelevant.
Resources	It seems obvious that if you keep taking stuff out of the ground, you will eventually run out. Yet, as the economist Julian Simon has pointed out, the cost of every natural resource has decreased over recorded history, showing that resources tend to become less scarce--affront to common sense though that may be. Simon points out the role of what he calls the ultimate resource, i.e. human ingenuity, which allows people to exploit new materials or find new ways of exploiting old materials. R Buckminster Fuller also pointed out the phenomenon of ephemeralisation, whereby new technologies tend to reduce the pressure on resources--for example, today's mobile phone is less demanding of energy and raw materials than its bulky predecessor, while being vastly more capable. In any case, humanity has just scratched the surface of part of one planet in the solar system. The supposed problem of running out of resources is a pure myth and fantasy.
Technology	It seems obvious that labour-saving technologies must put people out of work, especially the less capable people who are capable of doing only manual labour. On these grounds, many people opposed the introduction of the motor car as threatened all those whose living relied on horse drawn carriages (from stablemen to those who scooped up horse droppings from the street). Yet the motor car has created far more jobs than it ever took away. The problem is a static view of the world, seeing only the harm that is done to the existing order and not the benefits of doing things in a different way. Technological improvements have always been associated with growth in human numbers. Despite all the hyperbolic claims for artificial intelligence, we are still a long way from creating a machine as flexible as a human being--even the least capable of them.
Environment	People readily believe in the notion of environmental determinism, i.e. that a society's fortunes depend on the climate. Westerners for example are easily convinced that the heat and humidity of the world's tropical zones is responsible for the laziness and underachievement of the people who live there. This is despite the underachievement of the temperate zones for the first 4000 years of recorded history and the fact that the west owes all its basic knowledge to people who once lived in those hot and humid places. Modern Singapore has become a prosperous society despite heat, humidity and the need to import every vital resource, including water. To be sure, climate has an effect on social phenomena--droughts cause hardship and damage the economy--but there is no straightforward correlation. People can overcome climatic problems and do not necessarily succumb to them in a feeble manner. As for worries about climate change, the fact is that climate has been changing, often dramatically, since time immemorial. The thing is to adapt to it, not try and prevent it--which would be impossible. Historically, periods of cooling have been regarded as the problem and warming as a desirable amelioration. The current environmentalist perception of warming as a problem is simply perverse. Europe was extensively deforested in early modern times and there is very little natural about the landscape whatsoever. Yet the planet has not suffered any obvious adverse consequences and Europe is a perfectly pleasant environment in which to live. It may also be noticed that there has been a great improvement in the environment over the last few decades, with fish returning to once poisoned rivers and city smogs a thing of the past. People can solve the problems of pollution by moving forward with new inventions, successfully exploiting what environmentalists disparagingly call the technological fix. As recent history shows, technological fixes work.