How Systems Collapse
This is how systems collapse: faith in the visible surface of abundance reigns supreme, and the fragility of the buffers goes unnoticed.
I often discuss systems and systemic collapse, and I’ve drawn up a little diagram to illustrate a key dynamic in systemic collapse. The key concepts here are stability and buffers. Though complex systems are never static, but they can be stable: that is, they ebb and flow within relatively stable boundaries supported by reserves, i.e. buffers.
In ecosystems, this ebb and flow is expressed in feedback loops between the weather, environment and plant/animal species which inhabit the ecosystem. Ideal weather/food conditions may spark a rise in an insect population, for example, which then enables an increase in insect-predator populations (fish, birds, frogs, etc.) which then increases the consumption of the insects and reduces the impact of the higher insect population.
Fluctuations within this dynamic generate feedback that tends to reduce extremes and restore dynamic equilibrium.
In the human sphere, ideal weather increases crop yields which then enables a larger human population. When lean years replace fat years, the populace suffers from a lack of calories and births decline and deaths from disease rise as weakened individuals are more vulnerable to infections, etc.
In this example, reserve supplies of water and food are buffers that smooth out periods of want and instability. Suppose the populace depends on a river for irrigation and human consumption (cooking, bathing, etc.). If the river runs low, the populace relies on wells for reserves of water. In good harvests, grain is set aside for lean harvests; the wells and grain stores are buffers which can be drawn down to restore stability to a stressed system.
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