In the News
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True Viral News Saturday, Jul. 15, 2017
The Law of Returns and Complex Societies: An Interview with Joseph Tainter
A sustainable society is only as secure as the strength and success of its problem-solving institutions. If and when these fail, society is toast, suggests Dr. Joseph Tainter, a professor at Utah State University and author of a riveting book on this subject, The Collapse of Complex Societies. During a recent interview with PeakProsperity.com, Dr. Tainter told a listening audience how successful societies rely on healthy investments in the areas of social complexity and energy subsidies. Once these begin to see diminishing marginal returns, however, these societies are said to have reached a tipping point from which they will eventually reach a point of collapse – the inevitable consequence of declining net energy per capita, ever-depleting key resources, and an over-leveraged economy. ... ” Sustainability requires that people have the ability and the inclination to think broadly in terms of time and space,” Dr. Tainter stated during the interview.” ... “People have to take responsibility for knowing and understanding the predicament that we’re facing,” he says.