Schneider and Sagan (2005) argue that complex nonequilibriumthermodynamic systems—societies, political systems, ecosystems, and economies—share a universal feature; they regress to earlier, more hierarchical, less complex and less open forms of organization under conditions of environmental stress such as plagues, wars and depressions. This propert

“We know why the dark age happened,” Fiore continues. “Our ancestors allowed their storage and processing architectures to proliferate uncontrollably, and they tended to throw away old technologies instead of virtualizing them. For reasons of commercial advantage, some of their largest entities deliberately created incompatible information formats

In his book Collapse, economist Jared Diamond lists five factors that can lead to social decay, including a failure to understand and to prevent causes of environmental damage; climate change; depredations by hostile neighbors; the inability of friendly neighbors to continue trade; and finally, how the society itself deals with the problems raised