In 1988, Joseph Tainter published “The Collapse of Complex Societies,” in which he published a prescient and simple argument with far-reaching implications: 1) Social complexity is a problem-solving mechanism. 2) Complexity has costs in terms of energy. 3) Societies tend to add rather than subtract complexity when facing new problems. 4) Complexity often reaches a point of diminishing marginal returns in relation to its energy costs. 5) When societies reach this point of diminishing returns, they are vulnerable to collapse to a simpler level of social organization, which is an economizing reaction to problems that can no longer be solved by adding more complexity. 1/8