Joe Tainter: “Surplus, Complexity, and Simplification” | The Great Simplification #27 

Joseph Tainter is an absolute legend! Nice work, Nate.

Great interview! Thank you for all you do to help educate 🙏

Humankind is making the choice for economic growth & consumption at the expense of scarce planetary resources. It's an expression of imprisonment (not free will) to materiality. The first step is taking responsibility for the consequences of this choice, and then to pursue a superior way of thinking, and then thus acting. Enlightenment, the ability to undo previously hardwired thinking into an elevated form of thinking, is an aspect separating humankind from other animal species. Prof. Tainter exuded abundant arrogance on this topic as I suspect his ego felt threatened.

Thank you Nate for inviting Dr Joe Tainter to your forum. He is a neighbor to the south of me down in Logan and I have had a few brief comments with him . He is a generous and thoughtful person who is a towering figure in collapse theory. His emphasis on early childhood education as a strategy was a twist I have not previously heard from him. Your comments and questions to him outside of what you ask all your guests was greatly appreciated by me. You absolutely get it as does Joe. One of the best interviews ever. Thank you!

I am a 3rd grade teacher in Vermont. I have been able to been able to promote questioning/critical thinking about certain non-sustainable practices and notions, such as the perceived need for plastic play objects, where most of our material existence comes from (fossil fuel, the sun) and how all energy use results in burning fossil fuel and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere (where do these desks come from, how do we get this heat, these lights...). We contrast current life with a life of less complexity (Sarah Morton's Day). I teach about plants, plant growth and we physically grow a garden outside of my classroom. Since virtually none of my colleagues are aware of where we are headed/ collapse, I know of no other K-12 educators who are doing this. I can do this as I don't openly share my philosophy or the underlying reason for my lessons with administrators or parents (the political issues you mention). It can be done, though the scope of this instruction is not the deep dive that true change requires, in my opinion.

"Yes, and I still don't have a solution for it." That is because there is no solution. It is a predicament. The best we can do is try to mitigate the human suffering that will occur as our society "simplifies". We are doing the opposite.

I question the idea that a steady state economy wouldn't be accepted because for one person to ascend the socioeconomic ladder another person has to descend. This accurately describes the reality of our hyper-growth economy as a few people accumulate hoards of riches on the backs of everyone else. So the issue isn't overall growth vs steady state or even overall decrease, it's how the energy and wealth are distributed so that everyone is OK, and no one can climb up because of the suffering of others.

This idea of the great simplification is a reality, but the other reality is that most countries just want to be the one to survive until that day comes and some are going to be okay with taking out their competitors before that happens. Some of us think about the planet we're on as a whole, others are just thinking about the ground their standing on,, and that's the rub. Thank you both professor Tainter and professor Hagens. Peace, but I'm really beginning to think we're not going to take that path.

This is the information that would save millions and millions of lives. Instead we get stupefied through asinine propaganda 🙁

We're "optimized for growth", the Megacancer. Every human is pursuing the Maximum Power Principle or energy flow into their own domain as are the technological cells in which they work and the "nations" into which those cells are organized. Humans may superficially claim to want a steady state, but as a zero-sum environment develops they want a steady or declining state for their competition and may work towards that end.

I find his ideas interesting and exciting, but he really needs to get the mote out of his eye and realize he has been blinded by a western culture that contemptuously discounted the colonized native cultures. He says people only knew their tiny little settlement, but bronze age peoples and first Nations people had trade routes all over the known world. He talks about people not having innate ability to grasp deep time, or think further than their own short, brutish lifespan, but indigenous peoples plan ahead for the good of the seventh generation-700 years ahead, because their generations are the lifespan of an elder, not the 20 years our modern "generations" are stupidly set at. He talks about people not having sufficient leisure to develop mathematics, astronomy, and fine art. But Indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest had so much leisure they developed a complex political system, material culture, sports and competition, and had potlatches and celebrations all the time. Indigenous peoples learned and recorded information about the Stars so they could navigate continental journeys and return home safely. He talks about only two valid pre-industrial lifestyles, hunter-gatherer and settled agricultural, but the indigenous Americans tended the garden of the wild, enhancing the food production and health of the 'world farm" - compared to the land degrading and time-consuming tilling of the field (ultimately using animal slavery) invented by the Europeans. This author knows what he knows but *doesn't know what he doesn't know.*

Joe Tainter: "Remember what I said, that early experiences and early socialization conditions a person's brain for life." I'm four years younger than Tainter, and I refused to get under my desk, because I knew without a doubt there was not going to be a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. I had much more faith in JFK and Khrushchev, and knew they would work it out peacefully. However I also believe that if we do not get rid of our nuclear weapons, nuclear annihilation is inevitable, because under our current economic model, collapse is unavoidable, and the fascistic ruling elite in the U.S. will respond to our economic collapse by launching nuclear weapons at China and Russia, who they will blame for our collapse. Of course, climate change is running in second place, and is gaining ground coming into the home stretch, so it might be able to catch up and overtake nuclear winter, as the cause of our demise.

If you want it straight, listen to Nate!

No ‘BAU’? ‘Most’ ‘economic thinking’ is ‘short run’ and ‘redundant’? ‘It’ ignores the ‘supply side’? ‘Growth’ {and ‘civilisation’} depends upon ‘cheap’ F.F. - those so called ‘halcyon days’ are ‘over’. ? “The crisis now unfolding, however, is entirely different to the 1970s in one crucial respect… The 1970s crisis was largely artificial. When all is said and done, the oil shock was nothing more than the emerging OPEC cartel asserting its newfound leverage following the peak of continental US oil production. There was no shortage of oil any more than the three-day-week had been caused by coal shortages. What they did, perhaps, give us a glimpse of was what might happen in the event that our economies depleted our fossil fuel reserves before we had found a more versatile and energy-dense alternative. . . . That system has been on the life-support of quantitative easing and near zero interest rates ever since. Indeed, so perilous a state has the system been in since 2008, it was essential that the people who claim to be our leaders avoid doing anything so foolish as to lockdown the economy or launch an undeclared economic war on one of the world’s biggest commodity exporters . . . And this is why the crisis we are beginning to experience will make the 1970s look like a golden age of peace and tranquility. . . . The sad reality though, is that our leaders - at least within the western empire - have bought into a vision of the future which cannot work without some new and yet-to-be-discovered high-density energy source (which rules out all of the so-called green technologies whose main purpose is to concentrate relatively weak and diffuse energy sources). . . . Even as we struggle to reimagine the 1970s in an attempt to understand the current situation, the only people on Earth today who can even begin to imagine the economic and social horrors that await western populations are the survivors of the 1980s famine in Ethiopia, the hyperinflation in 1990s Zimbabwe, or, ironically, the Russians who survived the collapse of the Soviet Union.” ? consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2022/07/01/bigger-than-you-can-imagine/ “It is this belief in a new digital revolution which gave rise to the much-derided article by Danish politician, Ida Auken - originally titled “Welcome to 2030: I own nothing, I have no privacy, and life has never been better.” More popularly known as “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.” It is a world of digital currencies and digital IDs, vaccine passports and 15-minute cities, electrification and driverless cars. All of it based around the “energy too cheap to meter” from wind turbines and solar panels, and all of it operated by autonomous artificial intelligence within the “singularity” of the “internet of things.” It is a mirage, of course… one only visible to so-called “virtuals” - people whose lives and careers are now so detached from the material world that, were there not so many of them, could otherwise be diagnosed as certifiably insane. The real world, meanwhile, looks more akin to the second global collapse - the first being the collapse of the integrated economies of the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean empires sometime around 1186 BCE. The majority of ordinary people have seen their living standards decline over the past two decades - a process compounded and accelerated by two years of lockdowns followed by a year of self-destructive sanctions on key resources.”? consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/03/01/paradise-postponed

Great interview, as always! I think this one is my favorite :) We are all fossil fuel addicts, literally. And as an addict myself I can tell you, chances are, we won’t make ANY significant changes in behavior and awareness until the SHTF and the pain becomes too great. Just hope it won’t be too late by then..

When asked if there are ways to solve problems without increasing energy. The obvious response to me is something along the lines of: "there are all sorts of inefficiencies in how we solve problems now which create more waste and more future problems, additionally there are many "problems" that we are solving now that are simply non-essentially, and in many cases even detrimental to true human flourishing"

Thanks for this great discussion, Nate. The number of views for this video reflects the depth of the problem that we're in. I believe Dr. Joseph Tainter's findings are groundbreaking and highly valid. But sadly overlooked by the responsible people.

The answear is really very simple stop producing unecessary things that we can live without it and start producing what is needed and necessary for life . Then there will be less rubbish , more energy ( because we will not waist it ) and most important society will be much healthier and happier . PS . We should ask orselves these questions : Has the serch for enemies and manufacture of weapons made us happier or healthier ? Do we want to develop ? Do we want self - destruction ? In which direction are we going ?

Myth 1 profit is a measure of economic and social well-being ;Reality-build in obsolescence,built in energy inefficiency,built in social inefficiency in form of extreme inequalities,externalised costs. Myth 2-most energy is used by individuals.Reality most energy is used by military activities of which wars are the most expensive and than by industries. Allegedly 1 hour of B-35 flying =1 year of average civilian travel in a medium size car,so how many years are being used up in current 70 wars?

Peter Zeihan who comes from a very different background, also emphasizes finance as key to complexity in globalization. I don't understand how finance facilitates this. If the people,. technology and resources needed to produce something exist, why is it only possible to organize this production with an imaginary accounting system? Michael Hudson and David Greaber are pretty clear that money started as debt, essentially imaginary accounting of taxes owed to Mesopotamian Temples, and money has never really changed in that regard even it it appears so.

“No civilization can possibly survive to an interstellar spacefaring phase unless it limits its numbers. Any society with a marked population explosion will be forced to devote all its energies and technological skills to feeding and caring for the population on its home planet. This is a very powerful conclusion and is in no way based on the idiosyncrasies of a particular civilization. On any planet, no matter what its biology or social system, an exponential increase in population will swallow every resource. Conversely, any civilization that engages in serious interstellar exploration and colonization must have exercised zero population growth or something very close to it for many generations.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos Not that this is the only reason to limit our numbers. It is to say we cannot colonize our way out of the crisis. We must achieve zero population growth. This is as true for our civilization as it is for every civilization.

Daniel Schmact led me to Joseph Tainter's book "Collapse of Complex Civilizations", then to this channel, and now it comes full circle :)

give me a break this isn't an individual behavior that leads to complexity that's a systemic problem.

How can you say you only know of the Byzantines then mention the Mayans and not include them. Their civilization collapsed before Spanish got there, but the Mayans are still around today, millions live as rural peasants..also bronze age collapse. The known world experienced 300 years of Madmax, only the Egyptians survived.... barely..... I mean it would probably look something like what happened in Iraq when ISIS took over, only it would last for hundreds of years. Without alternative fuel, probably a new agrarian civilization would emerge eventually, probably based on slavery again.......and before Rome collapsed there were signs of massive economic shrinking, which Michael Hudson says is the result of too many debt slaves, and creditor oligarchs hoarding all the wealth,but not contributing to GDP.

Nature may have given everyone a wonderful energy source that was beyond the imagination of Victorian England as they were enthralled by going beyond nature and industrialzing with steam engines, dynamos, and electric motors. They chose the second law of thermodymamics instead of full realization of the well supported finding that energy can change form but not be created or destroyed. It may be possible to borrow thermal energy from our planetary air, water, or ground, convert it to electricity, and use the electricity as we wish and then return the thermal consequences of this use to the planet. Refrigerators and air conditioners in this system would produce electricity in exact equivalence to the heat they absorb. This perpetual cycling of energy is sustainable, infinitely growable, clean, abundant, and more or less always and everywhere available. Human rationality is neded to develop this system; animals plants and hybrids haven't developed it in billions of years. Here is a thought experiment device that hypothetically creates self powered thermal diversification. The thought experiment device is impractical but easy to visualize and check for mechanical workability. Its parts are large enough to act as everyday mechanisms but small enough to work well with the nanometer scale thermal motions of gas molecules. Sketch made with keyboard characters: COLD ROOM ())--:WALL:-->> HOT ROOM Key ()) = Paddlewheel. -- = Axle. (Continuous from end to end) : : = Axle tunnel going through a wall. >> = Lumped friction element Please visualize two roome full of air separated by a very thin wall that allows the rooms to hold their heat independently with minor leakage through the wall. The wall is thin to delicately support billions of separate nanometer scale short axles running straight through loosely enough to rotate freely but not leak very much heat so the rooms can hold separate temperatures. On the left side, a very small paddlewheel is mounted at the left end of each axle. On the right side, lumped friction elements are mounted stationary in place on the wall, one for each axle, for the right end of each axle to run through. The lumped friction elements convert the mechanical rotation of their axle into heat. The lumped friction elements do not impart Brownian motion to their axle. Brownian motion (a nanometer scale effect) turns the paddlewheels at random speeds randomly clockwise or counterclockwise. This random rotation is turned into heat by the lumped friction elements. The committed, linked, and functional roles of the walls, paddlewheels, axles, and lumped friction elements in differnt places should systemically produce a divergence in the thermal energy in the two rooms without adding external energy. Another hypothetical device is the "nanometer scale aggregate" derivitive of Nicola Tesla's "vavular conduit" a fluidic device where, other than minor structual erosion, only the fluid inside moves with the added property, imposed by the structure, that fluid flow is somewhat one way because flow restricting turbulence is generated when the fluid attempts to move in the reverse direction. This hypothetically, can be scaled down to rectify the Brownian thermal motion of the fluid. The effect is very small so billions of conduits must be collectively oriented the same way. Here is a hypothetical practical method with the working name thermary: The thermary mainly consists of two electrodes closely face to face (~1 micrometer) in a vacuum wired to an external electrical load. The face of the [Emitter] electrode is covered with a uniform array of LaB6 tipped small diameter carbon nanotubes grown straight out. The face of the [Absorber] electrode is covered with small scale graphine flake char. [Rice U 2014] Thermal energy mobilized unattached electrons will tend to free themselves outward from the emitter tips and drift at ~1 million meters / second @ 25 millivolts (thermal electron energy @ 20 C) to the absorber which tends to collect them. A negative charge accumulates on the absorber. This repels oncoming electrons slowing their forward drift, cooling them. The absorber electrode charge is simultaneously the repelling cooling and the external electrical load voltage. The drift current and external wire route current are the same. The DC electrical power consumed by the electrical load depends on the load resistance. Thermal energy absorption always equals the electrical yield. Wire resistance is a practical loss not a true loss so lt is overcome by added thermary output. The extra cooling balances the heat given off by the wire loss. The performance of the device is expected to be modest in the beginning but improve rapidly. Even early devices are expected to last a long time. There is little place for obsolence if the first installed thermary works adequately. They will withstand being short circuited indefinately up to an electromigration limit. Cell phones wouldn't die or need power cords or batteries or become hot. They would cool when transmitting radio signal power. Frozen food storage would be reliable and free or value positive. That means homes and markets would have independent power to preserve food. Vehicles wouldn't need fuel or fueling stops. Elevators would be very reliable with independent power. Water and sewage pumps may be placed anywhere. Nomads could raise their material supports item by item carefully and groups of people could modify their settlements with great technical flexibility. Zone refining would involve little net power. Reducing Bauxite to Aluminum, Rutile to Titanium, and Magnetite to Iron, would have a net cooling effect. With enough cheap power H2O and CO2 levels in the biosphere could be modified. There should be a unitary agency to look after our planetary concerns. I am not interested in any more patents. I have enough of a reputation with patent us3890161A Diode Array. The exclusionary use of patents breaks up synergistic benefits. Public participation is needed for wide scientific, general, and spiritual discourse, efficient use and efficient further development. Wide exposure to the public renders invention concepts unpatentable. Other teams have built low power prototypes of their concepts too so breakeve perpetual motion is likely to emerge somewhere. This would be a large change in civilization's relationship with energy, materials and industry. Ultimately it can be polutionless sustainable abundance but it disrupts many complex relationships so all kinds of human behavior would be set loose. I have been promoting this with increasing intensity for over 50 years because of its ultimate promise. It needs more attention to anticipate rough edges. Edward Bellamy's utopian novel "Looking Backwards" depicts a unified, peaceful, fulfilling society that was attained after a mostly peaceful transition. I think fundamentally new as well as updated older products should be manufactured in AI operated / human managed cooperative conglomerates (cooperative internally and externally). Business details would be open public knowledge. Associated people should freely talk and move as negotiated. Semicustom products would be sold at honest accounting commodity prices. No wealth draining top commanders are needed. It may be partly capitalized by factoring, and the factorers may have parts of the conglomerate somewhat dedicated to the production of their preferred products. The conglomerate may operate with wide participation for the betterment of civilization. I forsee a lot of people working for creative expression because the benefits of clean abundant pervasively useful energy will propagate through many manufacturing chains resulting in a materials web where material goods are inexpensive and a services web where people don't have to struggle to survive but can synergize and socialize with each other. Living will be inexpensive. Money will be left with individuals to donate as they wish instead of being trickled back by conspicuous philanthropy. Aloha Charles M Brown lll Kauai, Hawaii

5 acres and a mule.😊

Overall a great talk. However, listening with my ears... there may be a need to look at how "we" and "humans" are defined...

Further back to Mesopotamia 2600BC, they had compound interest and debt bondage. (Plus all recorded on clay tablets, no guessing) The Oligarchs came to own everything and everybody.

Why so many "rational" men (often old and scholars) and otherwise very competent in their field insist to always add "I'm not optimistic" (37:00 of course they don t really think of their individual selves in the same way - I guess )...I can't stop to think that it is the result of the fact that we are wired to master frustration rather than pursue fulfillment (for obvious evolutionary reasons) and of course the fact that we are facing some limitations that we didn't anticipated very well. I would like to notify that Jimmy Carter when he was president , tried desperately to explain to the Americans the exponential verses the linear ( I think he gave the example of the consommation of oil for the last 10 years equivalent to the consommation since the beginning of its use ), he was ridiculed by most medias (and Reagan was elected with the idea that "party" should go on)... too bad the medias didn't do their work again! It is not factual that the individual is not capable to change his behavior volontarely . So many time under war circonstances and "stories" of identity or other kind of idealism and/or stories of threats , individuals have accepted of rationing themselves as well as accepted to sacrificed their lives and the one of their children..what we need is a motivational Story based on more pragmatism and integrating all the new knowledges of the mechanisms of our environnement and the eco-systems , including our own emotional environnement. We need to integrate that we are primary emotional beings , not rational ! and thanks for it :) which doesn't t mean that the rational mind is not very important as it is the one which finds solutions .

Wonderful quote I shall credit to Prof Tainter "Once they get to college we can teach them things but we can't teach them to think."

That was fantastic. Thank you!

I got a degree in anthropology in 2008. And am generally mindful of these types of thinking, hence why I listen to podcasts like this. However the idea that academia is going to save people by giving them zero skills for real life and just to think the system is a sham....well thanks a lot guys. You really saved my world. I got absolutely nowhere in life. So thanks for saving me

People don't like to think about any of this

complexification is wholly contingent on enhancement of cognitive fluency, ever expansion of our repertoire and coordination of psychotechnologies, Vervaeke style. The concept and process of expanding deepening elegance in our distributed cognition systems is the engine for generating a societal transformational throughline. We need each other but we all have to bring everything we can to the table in good faith.

THE GREAT COLLAPSE with nate hagens. 50:00

complexity has to do with organising energy gradients so that work can be done, including but not limited to solving problems. Living complex systems organise energy gradients to maximise the work of living (moving, reproducing, evading predators, finding more food) and at the same time defeating entropy. To say 'energy and complexity grows together' is to say that more work can be done, but this can be any work that is valued. Some choose to spend a great deal of energy building temples or gardens, others write poetry, some circumnavigate the globe, Many wise civilisations (the ones that have endured) have done the work of defeating entropy, they have organised themselves to sustain their energy gradients and avoided undermining their energy gradients. Living in harmony with nature, if you will. Not being seduced into solving problems if these problems are too costly (ie not sustainable).

Nate Hagens: "I think the learning of our situation and the recognition of how important energy is to our lives at least gives individuals the options for choosing certain paths that aren't quite as energy intensive as our current culture is promoting." It seems to me that "options for choosing certain paths" indicates "free-will" which I thought Nate said we don't have.

If steady state is the only alternative to a rapid simplification, birthing permits seem less ominous. Is this a zero sum game or is there such a thing as efficiency where one can potentially get more happiness with a kindle than with printing and delivering the book ? Adding complexity with fewer calories consumed ?

📍20:30 2📍54:55

These two men have changed my life. What a time to be alive!

Wrong. What sustains us isnt energy, neither is it innovation or materials. Its ecology. Mediocre Joe

The tragedy of the commons trope is only operable under conditions of cutthroat competition. If we were to emphasize cooperation, we could ensure that the commons are managed for the long term.

Can we please, as a society, redefine productivity and innovation to include nonmaterial end points? Like ideas, ephemeral art, and acts of kindness?‘

Thank you Nate and Joe. You have steered me to an area, in which i have no prior knowledge.

Here's another question, during www FDR pulled out all the stops on The Manhattan project, essentially to develop a new source of energy for bombs. Why is something similar not possible for some other futuristic energy source? The sci-fi movies always depict space ships being run on like batteries the size of shoe boxes, or otherwise some kinda of reactor on anti matter or something

Interesting. Seems that they follow the philosophy of Malthusian view point.

follow up with a whole episode on what the education system he imagines would be teaching

As a Gen Xer I am acutely aware of having lived through the best times of humanity and accept the dark times ahead.

Jones Steven Hernandez Brenda Lewis David

The initial conditions of the future...be, NOW

Can AI help increase innovation productivity?

I've also seen an increase in complexity to "make life better", like turning my favorite bike path into a paved mini road that's cleared during Winter. Also, complexity increases for marketing. Do I need a Bluetooth enabled toothbrush? No, but I like my Waterpik Sonic Fusion, so I'm guilty.

‘The real thing’! Class 😂

Let's find a new planet to exploit. Problem solved

Fantastic podcast! Great observations by a forward looking guest and well-asked informed questions. "A decline in energy will lead to a decline in innovation, but what I would argue also a decline in innovation will lead to energy problems in the future because we will not be able to invent our way out of the problem." A sober thought.

Thanks RU-vid for popping this one up in my sidebar.

Thank❤🌹🙏 you, Joe Tainter and🌱👍 Nate! It's so scary😰 to live in such times as these...

Are we not practicing a form of wild foraging when consuming fossil fuels?

From my own experience...controlling breeding levels is one topic I had no agreement among those I brought up the topic... The standard is the couple should decide on how many and if THEY could afford them...not if the PLANET could afford them.. Don't see it happening...until it cant

Sicko

Thanks Nate and Joe, What you think of this? The brain is the most energy consuming organ in our body. Thinking out of harmony is very energy consuming. Being in the presence, (non-thinking, meditation), the brain can reduce his consumption to a fraction. Though, the presence is human's most efficient state. How many humans live in the presence? Why are young people always tired? Thinking crap is not for free

When I read his most famous book, I was blown away… hearing him here… priceless! Thank goodness there still places where sanity maintains a grip…

Great show! The growth of the human plague can be explained by the maximum power principle whereby during self-organization, open system designs (especially biological) develop and prevail that maximize power intake, energy transformation, and those uses that reinforce production and efficiency. The problem is that homo stupidus, probably since the advent of the taming of fire, has managed to expand its ecological niche to expand its own population at the expense of other species. Today, that trend has extended to reducing the very biological basis upon which homo stupidus depends for its existence, and we're on the fast track to extinction.

"Collapse now, and avoid the rush" - J.M.Greer

This is an interesting calling to voluntary simplicity. The concept is rooted in deep ecology and is a curious one. Whether we like it or not we are on the road to an economy based on less intensive energy usage. Based on the discrete nature of resources and the second law of thermodynamics, the question to be answered is the velocity with which we travel the journey.

Hi, how can I contact Prof. Tainter ? seems like he is not attached to Utah State University anymore.

22:00 What about nuclear energy?!

Tainter needs to read the Dawn of Everything. There are multiple examples in there of peoples in the past rejecting the exploitation of energy because it altered their lifestyles and cultures in ways that they did not wish to embrace. His comment is akin to saying that he knows of no person who has ever turned down a higher paying job because of other considerations. One of the authors passed on a couple of years ago, but I would strongly encourage you, Nate, to get David Wengrow on your podcast if you are able to. His and David Graeber's work are potentially very important to finding paths forward through understanding the past and thus what is possible in human society.

Thanks

👍

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He's quite superficial. Its pretty easy to spot the axes hes grinding and the flaws in his sweeping 'social science' assumptions. Maybe thats just how it appears in this interview. for example, ' sustainability assumes energy and innovation productivity which is declining or becoming more complex and most expensive, thus harder over time', which is false - research today often may show many co-authors see @57 mins et seq., not because there is a 'declining research subjects or projects' due to a 'shortage of research opportunities' but rather researchers realize that its 'publish or perish' so they need to seek co author opportunities to publish and also, collaboration is easier to do with computers and internet than it was before the internet, and most importantly, collaboration is creative and helpful to the objectives. He argues that early science researchers were greater innovators because there was more innovation possible, noting eg Darwin, Mendel, Curie, and I'll add Newton, but these people were not working in isolation nor were they opening wholly new fields but as Newton said of his own work, they were standing on the shoulders of the giants before them.

I wonder what their thoughts are on the great reset?

Is it just me or does this guy Tainter sound a heap like Noam Chomsky?

Montessori will reach a minute fraction of the population. Public schools, in particular, should be the focus. These ideas have to expand beyond elite or intellectual circles to scale up. I agree that by college years it is too late to instill fundamental change. College also has a reduced scope of the population.