Thank you for bringing that to our attention, Jody, it was excellent. I listened to the entire lecture, all five videos, but skipped the Q&A session in the last two.

The man exploded a lot of current myths, both conservative and liberal, including a few of my own. His point, that societal collapse is due to inevitable systemic problems, not necessarily incompetent or unethical leadership or governing philosophy, is not one most of us want to hear. It isn't the most optimistic of world views.

I've always suspected something like this was at work, but I always thought we could avoid it by just being smarter and more efficient. His argument, based on complexity theory and entropy, is very persuasive. At large enough scales, it appears, human society is essentially a physical phenomenon, and growth, and even stability, is dependent on ever-increasing sources of energy.

Tainter has applied to human societies an observation I once thought was reserved for smaller entities, like companies or bureaucracies; namely, that increased complexity requires increasing resources, and the energy required to manage that complexity, i.e., the overhead, rapidly leads to a condition of diminishing returns. Highly recommended!

BTW, ignore Lee's usual bigotry below. This lecture series has absolutely nothing to do with racial politics.