A great thread.
Chad Crowley @ CCrowley100
7/ An Addendum (As I often provide for clarification)
This essay was a brief exploration of
Joseph Tainter's "The Collapse of Complex Societies," alongside my analysis of the reigning liberal-humanist ideology in the West, its role in demographic transformation, and how these dynamics contribute to systemic fragility. It is not intended to be exhaustive or conclusive.
On X, I often discuss books and ideas that I don’t fully agree with, drawing my own conclusions, as any critical reader should. While I don’t align with every aspect of Tainter’s work, his overriding thesis rings true: complex societies collapse when the costs of maintaining their complexity outpace their ability to solve problems. Given that our world is the most interconnected and technologized in human history, his insights remain strikingly relevant.
It’s worth noting that Tainter wrote this book in 1988, and much of what he foresaw has now become our reality.
In the replies and reposts, most responses fall into one of two camps, either agreeing with the larger point or critiquing it.
For the latter, two recurring misconceptions dominate:
1. The Pilot and the First Tweet
Some are fixated on the helicopter footage, insisting the pilot isn’t to blame. But this entirely misses the point. The video wasn’t about the pilot; it was a visual shorthand, necessary on a platform like X, to draw attention. It represents systemic failure decades in the making—failure rooted in decayed leadership, crumbling infrastructure, and misplaced priorities.
Whether the pilot was doing his best within a broken system or is the product of DEI-driven hiring is ultimately irrelevant. The clip serves as a visceral reminder of what happens when a society’s capacity to maintain basic functionality erodes. It’s not about one individual’s actions but the larger decay that leaves a helicopter missing its mark as an emblem of collapse.
Naturally, the forces of Mother Nature play a role—as they always have and always will. Factors like erratic wind patterns, thermal turbulence, the inherent difficulty of aerial firefighting, etc., all complicate such efforts. Yet the question remains: is a society equipped to adapt and overcome these challenges, or does it succumb to its own self-inflicted fragility, leaving technical obstacles as insurmountable failures rather than manageable hurdles?
2. Policy Mismanagement
The other camp focuses on "policy mismanagement," claiming it as the root cause. This is a classic example of missing the forest for the trees. Tainter’s work isn’t a catalog of policy blunders; it’s a meta-analysis of civilizational collapse, spanning 18 vastly different societies across history. His purpose is to uncover the deeper patterns that arise when societies become too complex to sustain themselves.
Policy mismanagement is not the cause—it’s a symptom. As Tainter demonstrates, collapse occurs when the diminishing returns on complexity lead systems designed to solve problems to become the problems themselves. A society consumed by inefficiency, symbolic gestures, and ideological pretense is incapable of adapting to the practical demands of survival.
Focusing on isolated issues like brush management or fire zone construction obscures the broader reality: a system so unwieldy and preoccupied with maintaining appearances that it can no longer deliver meaningful solutions. The priorities are misplaced, the vision myopic, and the result predictable.
Tainter’s central message is that civilizations do not collapse due to isolated missteps—such as flawed policies, which ultimately reflect the values and priorities of a society and its elites—but because they become trapped by their own complexity, unable to address the fundamental realities needed for their survival.
Our current crises—whether in infrastructure, governance, or demography—are not isolated aberrations or events, they are the symptoms of a system that has prioritized ideological conformity and bureaucratic bloat over competence and survival.
The lesson is clear: without a return to practical, grounded solutions and the political will to confront uncomfortable truths, we risk joining the ranks of civilizations that collapsed under the weight of their own pretenses.
https://x.com/CCrowley100/status/1877559663555674612
How long did it take him to get back?
