we are trapped. we cannot simplify. we cannot withdraw from the way our system has evolved and the way we have set it up. we are at the point where we really are trapped in, i have to say, a downward spiral that we can’t get out of, or we will someday get out of it when a crisis occurs, but we can’t voluntarily withdraw from it because that would create too many other problems and politicians aren’t willing to create those kinds of problems.

complexity is a gradual process. collapse, by definition, happens fairly rapidly. that is why the term collapse is applied to the process. it is a fairly rapid simplification, a fairly rapid loss of a complex way of life. but the thing about collapse is that it tends to be insidious. it creeps up on you. a problem comes along and you solve it, and then the next one comes along and you solve it, and all of these problems come along and they are solved incrementally, one at a time, and in the meantime, the overall cost just kind of sneaks up on you until you reach a point where you can no longer afford to be the kind of society that you have become.

complexity has never been under human control.

—joseph tainter