Great post! Mass extinctions and historical societal collapses are important data sources—I would also suggest ecological regime shifts. My main takeaway is actually about multicausality: several ‘external’ shocks typically occur in a similar period. ‘Internal’ factors matter too—very similar shocks can affect societies very differently depending on their internal structure and leadership. When complex adaptive systems shift equilibria, several causes are normally at play.
Myself, Luke Kemp and Anders Sandberg (and many others!) have three seperate chapters touching on these topics in a forthcoming book on ‘Historical Systemic Collapse’ edited by Princeton’s Miguel Centeno et al . Hopefully coming out this year.
Thanks Haydn! I didn’t totally follow this since I’m not familiar with some of these terms, but great to hear that some more thorough literature surrounding this!
Great post! Mass extinctions and historical societal collapses are important data sources—I would also suggest ecological regime shifts. My main takeaway is actually about multicausality: several ‘external’ shocks typically occur in a similar period. ‘Internal’ factors matter too—very similar shocks can affect societies very differently depending on their internal structure and leadership. When complex adaptive systems shift equilibria, several causes are normally at play.
Myself, Luke Kemp and Anders Sandberg (and many others!) have three seperate chapters touching on these topics in a forthcoming book on ‘Historical Systemic Collapse’ edited by Princeton’s Miguel Centeno et al . Hopefully coming out this year.
Thanks Haydn! I didn’t totally follow this since I’m not familiar with some of these terms, but great to hear that some more thorough literature surrounding this!