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Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

For discussions of events and conditions not necessarily related to Peak Oil.

Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby dohboi » Thu 01 Sep 2016, 22:02:58

http://inhabitat.com/early-warning-sign ... new-study/

Early warning signs that foretell imminent societal collapse – new study

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... lapse.html

How to spot if society is DOOMED: Researchers reveal the signs that show civilization is set to collapse

• Researchers examined archaeological records of the European Neolithic
• This revealed there were a number of early warning signs before collapse


Researchers examined 2,378 archaeological sites from nine regions of Neolithic Europe to determine if early warning signs were present before the collapse of a civilization.

...early warning signals are present when an ecosystem begins to show declining resilience.

This phenomenon can indicate the forthcoming of ‘major reorganization,’ or a regime shift within the ecosystem, and subsequently, a collapse...

During this period, the communities experienced massive population growth as a result of the emergence of agriculture and the technological advancements that followed.

While these developments may seem beneficial, they also led to ‘periods of devastating societal instability ...


And for those who want to dig deeper, here's a link to the study itself, full text!

http://www.pnas.org/content/113/35/9751.full

I'll just include the abstract here (my formatting and emphases):

Ecosystems on the verge of major reorganization—regime shift—may exhibit declining resilience, which can be detected using a collection of generic statistical tests known as early warning signals (EWSs). This study explores whether EWSs anticipated human population collapse during the European Neolithic. It analyzes recent reconstructions of European Neolithic (8–4 kya) population trends that reveal regime shifts from a period of rapid growth following the introduction of agriculture to a period of instability and collapse.

We find statistical support for EWSs in advance of population collapse.

Seven of nine regional datasets exhibit increasing autocorrelation and variance leading up to collapse, suggesting that these societies began to recover from perturbation more slowly as resilience declined.

We derive EWS statistics from a prehistoric population proxy based on summed archaeological radiocarbon date probability densities. We use simulation to validate our methods and show that sampling biases, atmospheric effects, radiocarbon calibration error, and taphonomic processes are unlikely to explain the observed EWS patterns.

The implications of these results for understanding the dynamics of Neolithic ecosystems are discussed, and we present a general framework for analyzing societal regime shifts using EWS at large spatial and temporal scales. We suggest that our findings are consistent with an adaptive cycling model that highlights both the vulnerability and resilience of early European populations. We close by discussing the implications of the detection of EWS in human systems for archaeology and sustainability science.


It would be nice if they spelled out a bit more clearly what all the Early Warning Signs were and how exactly they measured them.
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby claman » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 01:14:38

One of the VERY early signs of a civilizations decay, is when it starts having professional armies. When the elite doesn't trust the ordinary people to fight for their country and the common goals, then the elite has some how admitted that there is a schisma between the people's wishes and the goals of the rulers.
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby claman » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 01:32:31

Some examples of succesfull wars fougth with "ordinary" people against professional armies are The Vietnam War, in general the muslims war against the USA, The american independence war, The afghan wars against intruders through the centuries , The African anti colonial wars and probably many more.
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby Simon_R » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 05:18:59

Hi Claman

Professional Armies may in some cases signify a mistrust.

Normally a society goes professional (Militarily) when the complexity of the equipment and the skillset calls for this, or when a standing army is required

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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 06:36:59

One EWS is when scribes average more then fifty syllables per sentence. :)
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 07:14:43

I think they're is a plethora of signs of global societal collapse and a collapse that will overwhelming unlike any previous collapses both in scope and magnitude
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby claman » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 07:38:37

Simon says:"Professional Armies may in some cases signify a mistrust"

I think that after the Vietnam War, most countries that are involved in aggressive wars, would prefer professional troops for the job . Because they might not have the public support for the particular war if it really went public.
The thing about the skills level is basically a question about allowing the Military-industrial complex to make its propaganda heard in Washington, Moskau or Peking. That again is dependent on a professional army to back them up. where a conscript army might hold back a little.
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby claman » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 07:53:05

Onlooker ,I think they're is a plethora of signs of global societal growth and a growth that will overwhelming unlike any previous growth both in scope and magnitude.
Onlooker,mantras don't give you any respect , just salvation
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby claman » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 08:06:39

vtsnowedin , I wonder what EWS means ?
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 09:18:32

See also the Baltic Dry Index thread. Shipping has been on the ropes for a bit. Not getting better. International financial relationships are strained.

Zero interest rates, maybe they didn't exist back then, but they don't sound good now.
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby GHung » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 10:13:12

Leadership becomes more divisive, and a significant part of the population supports lunatics for their extreme positions on issues. These lunatics over-simplify complex problems to garner support, and promise to enact policies that have no hope of solving anything; are essentially unworkable because the true nature of the issues is never addressed. In short, the populace becomes increasingly deluded and dogmatic, supporting leadership that is either corrupt or even more deluded and dogmatic. Pragamatism is sacrificed to fear.
Blessed are the Meek, for they shall inherit nothing but their Souls. - Anonymous Ghung Person
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 15:10:00

Early warning signs that foretell imminent societal collapse might be an increase in the number of reports discussing potential warning signs of societal collapse.

Or not. LOL.
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 15:31:36

RE a Peoples Army.....at one time, for a while, we had widespread conscription, a general draft. All through Viet Nam. Now we have the then much vaunted "All Volunteer Army." But what we have done in effect is to off load the fighting to a group of folks who have little other choice if they want a good stable job with benefits. The upper middle class and up are no longer required to participate in our wars.

This I think is a major mistake and reverberates throughout our culture and our foreign relations.
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 17:01:19

vtsnowedin wrote:One EWS is when scribes average more then fifty syllables per sentence. :)

Was it not defines above as "Early Warning Signs"
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby Hawkcreek » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 17:08:44

The draft ended after Vietnam because TPTB realized it would not supply enough fodder for the empire machine without enormous upheaval. Can you imagine the kind of return fire (literally) that would arise if a lot of middle class kids came back in body bags from a "war" that was started just to defend oil profits, when the kids were virtually forced into battle?
At least now they can claim, "Well, they volunteered. They have no gripe".
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 17:25:37

Hawkcreek wrote:The draft ended after Vietnam because TPTB realized it would not supply enough fodder for the empire machine without enormous upheaval. Can you imagine the kind of return fire (literally) that would arise if a lot of middle class kids came back in body bags from a "war" that was started just to defend oil profits, when the kids were virtually forced into battle?
At least now they can claim, "Well, they volunteered. They have no gripe".

Yes and they can claim serving is a good outlet for poor young men who could otherwise take wrong paths. In fact some seem to volunteer precisely for that reason
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 02 Sep 2016, 19:25:51

Jared Diamond, in his book collapse, noted that the elite becoming increasingly distant from the masses was a good indicator of collapse.

I suppose one could argue that aligns with the professional military argument.

But it also seems to align with this presidential race where both parties had candidates who were outside the elite do well. Trump, while rich, is so wacky as to defy placing him as a traditional elite. Hillary is clearly from the political elite. I suspect most folks don't believe she has any emotional connection to them. Similar for Obama who, while not rich, has that academic snobbery. They are very different from Bill and Dubua who both resonated with the common folk.
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby dohboi » Sat 03 Sep 2016, 08:31:18

Good points.

But the dubya example brings up the paradox one of the paradoxes of the perception of 'elite.' He was far far more elite in every way you can name, politically, monetarily, even academically being a 3rd gen (at least) Eli/Yalie... than Obama and both both Clintons, none of which had former presidents as daddies nor were any of them born with a 'silver foot in their mout.' But he tried to come across as a good ol' boy, and that shtick obviously worked on many people.

Trump is, by his own accounts, in a whole different league, at least as regards monetary elites, claiming to be a billionaire. That's one of many reasons that it is so bizarre that he is the hero of so much of the (mostly white male) lower classes.
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby Tanada » Sat 03 Sep 2016, 09:51:03

dohboi wrote:Trump is, by his own accounts, in a whole different league, at least as regards monetary elites, claiming to be a billionaire. That's one of many reasons that it is so bizarre that he is the hero of so much of the (mostly white male) lower classes.


I don't understand why so many are mystified by Trumps success. The two major parties have promised this that and the other thing to the masses for 20 years, failed to deliver on every single item and just pointed at the other party as obstructionist as an excuse.

People are sick of the insider game and the only outsider left in the race is Trump. You can argue he is kooky, or too old, or racist/sexist/bigot/homophobe but people are sick of the PC jargon too so you are just wasting your breath. Something like 70 percent of the voters are not easily pigeonholed because the one who bother to vote are motivated by something besides the categories the MSM harps about all the time. Face it, if Barack Obama had looked like John McCaine but talked like himself he would have never gotten elected to the Presidency straight from his first term as Senator. He was not elected based on the strength of his speeches or the ideas he expounded, he was elected because the economy was in crisis and the Republican party got all the blame for it despite the fact that the majority of Democrats helped things along every year. Congress was under the control of Nancy Pelosi in the last two years of the Bush administration and fully controlled the purse strings.

The insider game disgusts the voters, Congress continues to poll in the low double digits in approval ratings. Washington D.C. is perceived to no longer be working for the average American, they are bought and paid for by the financial elites and the people who look at them can see that quite clearly. D and R turn out to be labels for the rhetoric they spew, not the actions they take. So you like the lies the D's tell to get elected, how is that working out for you in your personal life, your community life, your state life? Same question for the R lies loving crowd.
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Re: Early Warnging Signs of Societal Collapse

Unread postby ennui2 » Sat 03 Sep 2016, 13:52:14

Being an outsider in and of itself is not sufficient cause to elect someone. Trump is a gibbering idiot who can barely read his prepared speeches. The only time he comes across as assertive is when he's doing his standup improv act where he insults and bullies one group or another or makes vague promises to make America Great again.

There is no reason to support the guy other than as a protest vote aimed at deliberately driving the country into the shitter in order to get the Rs and Ds to clean up their act. Nobody with half a brain can believe that he'd actually improve things.
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