Joe Tainter: “Surplus, Complexity, and Simplification”

Episode 27
July 13, 2022

(Conversation Recorded on June 15, 2022)

On this episode we meet with anthropologist, historian, and Professor at Utah State University, Joe Tainter.

What are the key differences between complicated and complex? How can we better understand energy and society through these key distinctions? Tainter explains our current predicament based on decades of research and offers pathways for our collective future.

About Joe Tainter

Joe Tainter has been a professor at Utah State University in the Environment and Society Department since 2007, serving as Department Head from 2007 to 2009. His study of why societies collapse led to research on sustainability, with emphasis on energy and innovation. He has also conducted research on land-use conflict and human responses to climate change. He has written several books, including The Collapse of Complex Societies and Drilling Down: The Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma.

Show Notes

PDF Transcript

00:57 - Joe Tainter Works + Info

02:00 - Living in the Future’s Past (Movie with Jeff Bridges)

04:10 - Collapse of the Roman empire and collapse of the Mayan empire

04:13 - Optimal Foraging Theory

06:43 - Agates and Stromatolites 

07:20 - EROI/Energy Gain

10:48 - Tadeusz Patzek + Drilling Down: The Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma

11:01 - U.S. forces in North Africa in 1942

15:40 - Complexity develops to solve a problem

16:57 - Underpaying for fossil carbons

17:58 - In the past, 90% of humans labored in food production

20:09 - Paul Maidowski Twitter

20:35 - Early socialization creates synapses that shape the person to come

22:11 - Maximum Power Principle

22:59 - Energy Complexity Spiral (Drilling Down)

23:38 - Joe on the Byzantine Empire (pg. 63)

29:50 - We are not evolved to think broadly in space and time

31:07 - Mayan calendrical and astronomical knowledge

32:50 - Climate Change

34:33 - Thomas Malthus

34:38 - Paul Ehrlich info + TGS podcast

35:20 - A refrigerator uses more energy than many countries use per capita

35:45 - George H.W. Bush on Climate

36:24 - Tragedy of the commons

38:25 - Petroleum and WW2

38:30 - Oil used to be 100:1 EROI, now it is 15:1

41:11 - Fracking technology “makes the straw bigger”

41:23 - Countries like Germany and Japan have to import most energy

41:57 - The Euro has weakened against the Ruble

42:11 - Freeport LNG explosion

42:31 - Natural gas prices

42:45 - Fracking

45:20 - Energy drawbacks of a renewable system in comparison to oil based

46:00 - We are optimizing societies for growth - which will never be possible

47:05 - Dominican Republic dictator who preserved the forests

48:05 - How money and debt interacts with energy

50:34 - What would life be like in 1750 Europe

54:45 - Steady State economy

56:35 - Issues with assumptions in modern economic theory

57:20 - Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Gregor Mendel

58:40 - Deborah Strumsky and Jose Lobo, patent paper

1:03:18 - All the things that petroleum is valuable for

1:10:55 - Montessori education


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Peter Whybrow: “When More is Not Enough”