Collapse - How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

[sir_schwick]

This is not neccessary indicative of the future. After all, much of our current society is based on things like cheap and easily accessible oil - which might not be true in the future, especially if demand from countries like China continues to soar.

Every society has been plagued with questions of fuel depletion. Maybe it is naive, but I tend to assume that fuel technology always seems to develop a new outlet whenever the old one is starting to deplete itself. Currently we cannot imagine what the next big fuel is, but I have confidence it will come.

 

[Darwin420]

I think more needs to be done to make resources less infinite. The current system of suddenly losing a resource and having it reappear somewhere else on the map is kind of ridiculous. I'd like to see resources have a certain capacity, that is drained everytime a building or unit is constructed that requires that resource. Then again, that might be too much micromanagement for some. I'd like to be able to prospect for metals, and have to replant forests so I can keep up a lumber supply.

More technologies relating to environment would be good, but we should also be able to issue policies (a la SMAC) relating to consumption and such - the faster you consume, the faster you produce, but you'll be out of luck very shortly. A slower consumption rate will sustain you, but you might be at a limited disadvantage for a little bit.. some work would be needed to balance such things out.

I'm split on population movement. I think it should be done, but as to whether or not its a player-controllable option is where I stall. Perhaps population should move on its own, to the nicer locations, unless given incentives to move somewhere (maybe growth past 3 will experience migration). Either that, or the player can adjust sliders to move population between cities that are connected. Something like that.

 

[dh_epic]

Also "all tales of the pending apocalypse have been wrong so far" is a poor justification for why we'll always be safe.

It's a question of whether you can conceive of a sudden shift that would be hard to undo. It's obviously conceivable -- several nuclear weapons go off, or someone's fusion reactor experiment succeeds a little too well. I think these are perfectly reasonable scenarios, not that they'll happen. Then it's a question of whether we're smart enough to be cautious... ... and those are just a few small examples.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

The book may be convincing, but there is not enough data to conclude the Easter Islanders, Maya, orAnasazi failed for ecological reasons. The Norse Greenland colonies, Yes. And modern-day Rwanda, perhaps.

That the Easter Islanders chopped down all their trees was already mentioned.

The Maya, once their population reached a certain level, began cultivating the previously forest-covered hill sides - but only for a relatively short time, since they were less fertile, and what's worse, they now eroded and the sediments began to cover the previously fertile valleys, thus further reducing agricultural output. Archaeological evidence is pretty firm on this.

The Anasazi also chopped down the trees on their mountains, which was revealed through, I kid you not, age analysis of pack rat middens (the dried nests of pack rats that contains both rat excrements and remains of plants and animals - these middens can survive for several tens of thousands of years in the dry air of the area). To make a long story short, middens from before human habitation have an abundance of evidence for the existence of trees and other wild plants, which decrease and eventually vanish once humans arrive. There is also some archaeological evidence in how use of logs in house construction decreases.

They also had a unstable water management system, where they were dependent on rains in remote valleys that might or might not come each year. And at some point, their population increased to a point where it could be supported through some wet decades, but during a period of droughts it collapsed, leading to starvation, civil war (further decreasing agricultural output), and even cannibalism (again, there is archaeological evidence for this).

Again, I want to stress that all this is only a very short summary of what you can read in the book...

In general, technology allows a civilization adapt to the degradation of the environment, making collapse a rare exception.

It is very hard to replace wood once you have lost it, for instance. The Easter Islanders lost the ability to build ocean-going ships and were confined to crats that were little more than rafts, and their population shrank to about 10% of their former numbers. And the Anasazi and the Maya vanished entirely.


And sure, many civilizations survive for a long time - but most of these have had the fortune of being in exceptionally stable environments. In other regions, ecological collapses have happened more often than most people think...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Every society has been plagued with questions of fuel depletion. Maybe it is naive, but I tend to assume that fuel technology always seems to develop a new outlet whenever the old one is starting to deplete itself. Currently we cannot imagine what the next big fuel is, but I have confidence it will come.

Well, it hasn't always worked in the past. And it is not just a matter of fuel, but also of agricultural output - especially today, where quite a few countries are incapable of feeding themselves...

 

[dexters]

Also "all tales of the pending apocalypse have been wrong so far" is a poor justification for why we'll always be safe.

It's a question of whether you can conceive of a sudden shift that would be hard to undo. It's obviously conceivable -- several nuclear weapons go off, or someone's fusion reactor experiment succeeds a little too well. I think these are perfectly reasonable scenarios, not that they'll happen. Then it's a question of whether we're smart enough to be cautious... ... and those are just a few small examples.

It would be exceedingly hard currently to destroy the planet in a short period of time by humans. Even if all the nuclear weapons were to be detonated, human life will prevail.

It is the longer term 'gradual' destruction that's more of a concern to the greens. And on that point I agree.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

It would be exceedingly hard currently to destroy the planet in a short period of time by humans. Even if all the nuclear weapons were to be detonated, human life will prevail.

It is the longer term 'gradual' destruction that's more of a concern to the greens. And on that point I agree.

It's not "Destruction of the World" that I am worried about. "Collapse of Civilization As We Know It", on the other hand...

 

[dexters]

It's not "Destruction of the World" that I am worried about. "Collapse of Civilization As We Know It", on the other hand...

Then the answer is also no. Not over a short period of time.

The problem with applying the term civilization to contemporary problem is that civilizations does not imply nation states. The world can be roughly dividied into a handful of cultural groups which traces their roots to more ancient civilizations.

It's a bit of a red herring for example to bring up isolated societies like easter island as an example of civilization in the mordern context where no one is truly isolated.

The dysfunction in the modern world goes beyond the environmental issue. Political issues are more important and some states need to fail and be rebuilt. Some populations need to die out for the planet to reach an equilibrium. At the risk of being branded names just for being a realist, I will point out that we as a global civilization need to get our act together.

Either combat overpopulation or don't. The current methods are innefectual and in fact continue to promote the culture of making babies in many 3rd world countries.

As I've said before, in the context of Civilization IV, your ideas will be very difficult to model given what Civilization games have been about (please read my earlier post). We're woefully off topic in the area of political discussion. I suggest that we get back on topic.

 

[sir_schwick]

Well, it hasn't always worked in the past. And it is not just a matter of fuel, but also of agricultural output - especially today, where quite a few countries are incapable of feeding themselves...

When has there been a major collapse of the predominant fuel of the day without another fuel coming along to replace it? There have been plenty of embargoes of one society against another, but not a collapse of fuel itself. There have been regions that have been damaged by overuse of local fuels(areas around Changsa), but other regions and societies have not automatically failed.

Also, we are at a point in history where there is enough food produced for everyone to eat. Starvation is an issue of wealth distribution, not agricultural output. Agricultural subsidies in developed nations make it nearly impossible for farmers in under-developed nations to compete. Bascially no one in those countries can afford to eat or aid never reaches them.

 

[dh_epic]

Overpopulation or environmental issues are just one of many things that could result in mass levels of destruction, if not wiping out a lot of civilization. Not that they will, but you can make the case for them. There are other "apocalypse" theories too, some having to do with genetic engineering, or fusion reactors, or so on.

I think the theme, though, is that the way to solve these problems isn't to ban the technology but improve the system that utilizes the technology.

The original luddites are often misinterpreted. They didn't fear new technology because they thought machines were evil, or they had some romantic idea of manual labor. They just saw the potential for factories to consolidate wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands, and make working conditions worse and worse for average folks.

The original luddite movement never caught on and was replaced years later by the labor movement and other such social improvements. The idea being that you don't have to ban factories to eliminate all the problems that they bring, from 16 hour work days, to unaccountable deaths and injuries.

I think the relation between the political system and the technology is more important than the technology itself.

Perhaps civics can reflect this. Completely unregulated technology moves faster and produces more, but with greater expenses to happiness and health.