spacecase0

pitfalls of civilization,

the cycles of civilization are very predictable and happen for clear reasons,

first people start building a civilization, they work very hard, then they get things mostly finished at some point.

future generations that then grew up with everything there just expect that the buildings and roads are just always there and expect them to be prebuilt and don't see why things take so much work to set up.

they are the kind of people that will vote for someone that will offer them comfort or free things in exchange for things that they don't see at critical, like a small tax to make sure that no one goes hungry.

after this goes on long enough, corruption and the “free things” that often were voted for or done to make the people happy, are require taxes and control that are just to much for people to deal with,

people stop going to work because they have no real reason to,

if they stop going to work, they will not starve, and what they make at work just gets taken away in taxes, when you get enough people doing that, the system falls apart, and everyone just walks away from that civilization

then they are free to work again and keep all of what they make, but eventually get tired of walking on mud roads and start building civilization back up again.

each person is doing what seems like a good idea at the time,

what is going on is that civilization optimizes for complexity,

and humans can not take infinite complexity

the cycle usually takes 200 to 400 years, but there are exceptions.

so what is the point where people will be the happiest and still be stable ? if we are smart about it we can hold a high comfort level and still not perpetuate that cycle.

I also wrote another version of this and can't tell what version I like more... here it is anyway :

civilizations go through cycles,
they rise and fall.
it is handy to know why that happens,
because when they fall it hurts people,
and with some planning you can keep the failure far in the future.
so it all comes down to 2 factors.
1: civilizations optimize for complexity,
2: people can't take infinite complexity.

when a civilization starts, people keep all of what they make,
and they have no infrastructure,

they will at some point decide to start taxing (labor, money, how ever they do it) and build some infrastructure (like roads, water systems, defenses, etc)

once something is built (let's use the IRS and H&R Block as examples) the civilization wants to keep it (just think of all the people that would be out of work if they were to be eliminated )

at some point, the infrastructure becomes more than the people can afford (it takes time, money, or something to build it all), and then people start to walk away from the civilization because they need to keep more of the work that they do in order to survive.

so people start walking away, and when enough have done it, the civilization crashes and the cycle repeats.

if you look around, you can see at what point your civilization is in that cycle. I think this is handy to know.

as to how to avoid that cycle,
it is very hard because everyone is just doing what seems like the right thing to be doing at the time.
knowing that cycle will help lots,
people will be less likely to vote for (or support) complex or unneeded things if they know where that road is going to end up.

# posted by space @ 2:12 PM