“Climbing Back Down The Complexity Ladder”

An excellent article in “New Scientist,” (April 2, 2008) “Why the Demise of Civilization May Be Inevitable,” by Debora MacKenzie, is to me an affirmation of conservatism, or rather paleoconservatism.

Researchers in various fields have been suggesting that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile, eventually it reaches a point at which even a relatively minor disturbance can bring everything crashing down. This seems to have been inevitable in all past civilizations.

We need to shift to decentralized networks, our strength will be in our distributed decision making, we can't be afraid of redundancy. Efficiency leads to complexity which leads to rigidly connected systems where one small shock can bring the whole system down.

If industrialized civilization based on fossil fuels and industrial agriculture breaks down, the urban masses—half the world—will suffer most. Subsistence farmers will suffer the least. This suggests not being against technology but against bigness, and globalism.

The American Constitution affirms a system of independent “redundant” states, even perhaps ethnostates if so desired, but the Constitution has been greatly distorted and abused. Paleoconservatives and constitutional libertarians may yet have their day, even if it comes after collapse.