Joe Tainter: “Surplus, Complexity, and Simplification”
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
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What Is the Byzantine Case Study?
In 2000, you wrote a paper which I assigned to all my freshman students in reality 101. You describe the Byzantine Empire is the only example of a society that planned its own soft landing through a simplification. Can you expand on this example? And are there other examples that have come up since you wrote that paper? Well, I'll answer the second part first because it's the easiest. And the answer is no, I have not come across any other society that survived by simplifying by systematically collapsing.
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