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Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I’d offer Jared Diamond or Niall Ferguson on this point, but they employ irony. This doorstop is more your speed: https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Comp.../dp/052138673X
ETA: Some Cliff’s Notes from a review (and bringing it all back to Covf— er, Cavafy):
“Two phrases which Tainter borrows from economics are "marginal cost" and "marginal return". Eventually, the marginal returns from investment in complexity - meaning the returns currently available - inevitably level off and then decline, while the marginal costs stay the same or even increase. The only way central authorities can so on supporting such costs is through taxation or currency debasement, unsustainable measures in a system where benefits are perceived as declining. A system so weakened becomes vulnerable to popular revolt or invasion, or lacks the will and resources to overcome other disasters. Tainter describes, for example, how the "barbarians" who eventually overran the Roman Empire were in many cases welcomed and even assisted by the Empire's population, who increasingly saw themselves as benefitting little from Rome's "complexity", even as Rome's tax collectors became more predatory than ever.” |
Things are broken because we have a federal political system that requires consensus, and we don't have consensus. We have been moving away from consensus since the end of the Cold War and when Gingrich started remaking the Republican Party.
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“It was fortunate that so few men acted according to moral principle, because it was so easy to get principles wrong, and a determined person acting on mistaken principles could really do some damage." - Larissa MacFarquhar
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