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
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