Energy Flow, Complexity, and Collapse: "Have we not reached our point of maximum complexity where every investment brings less actual return in benefits?" | The Oil Drum
Tainter documents how societies that reach the limits of marginal returns on increased complexity and then something bad happens. They collapse. What about a world in which we have 'artificially' increased the flow of energy by using fossil fuels (far above real-time solar influx) so that we can evolve much higher orders of realized complexity than can be sustained once those fossil fuels start to decline? Have we not reached our point of maximum complexity where every investment in more complexity brings less actual return in benefits? And might it not be due to the fact that we have reach some kind of maximum flow of energy?
That is the problem we face as a global civilization. We are running short on oil and as a consequence we are going to find it harder to extract other energy and mineral resources. Our net energy is already in decline and that is at the root of the global economic problems we are seeing. The simple truth is that you cannot have a growing economy when the basis of all economic wealth production is in decline. You cannot make up the difference with efficiency gains (and in reality there really aren't many actual efficiency gains to be made). The scope of energy flow due to fossil sunlight is just unbelievably huge. Neither will we make up the difference with alternative, sustainable sources (like real-time solar influx) because we can't build out the scale of infrastructure that would be required in any reasonable time frame.
We can only start simplifying our societies and giving up the many discretionary expenditures of energy that we currently enjoy without much thought. We can learn to once again live on real-time solar influx via our food raising systems. And even then we are talking about an ability to support only a small fraction of the current population.
George Mobus applies the concept of energy flow through a system to Joseph Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies. In the process he makes some interesting generalizations about energy and complexity from the molecular level up: "The flow of energy through a system acts to organize that system." To paraphrase Mobus (and Tainter), the flow of energy enables a certain degree of complexity within any given system. And what happens when the flow of energy changes or is disrupted?...
