Interesting read from Joseph A. Tainter. Not sure you can or even want to see a more complex society than the one we are held slaves to through their 'fixed' economic scam. I give the country less then a 50/50 shot to crawl out of this pit in one piece.The only way do so, is to reverse the error of placing politics above life.Life is Eternal, states run their coarse....

...The image of lost civilizations is compelling: cities buried by drifting sands or tangled jungle, ruin and desolation where once there were people and abundance. Surely few persons can read such descriptions and not sense awe and mystery. Invariably we are spellbound, and want to know more. Who were these people and, particularly, what happened to them? How could flourishing civilizations have existed in what are now such devastated circumstances? Did the people degrade their environment, did the climate change, or did civil conflict lead to collapse? Did foreign invaders put these cities to an end? Or is there some mysterious, internal dynamic to the rise and fall of civilizations? Some of us are so fascinated by these questions that we devote our lives to studying them. Most people encounter the dilemma of fallen empires and devastated cities in casual reading, or in a school course. The image is troublesome to all, not only for the vast human endeavors that have mysteriously failed, but also for the enduring implication of these failures.

The implication is clear: civilizations are fragile, impermanent things. This fact inevitably captures our attention, and however we might wish otherwise, prompts disturbing questions. Are modern societies similarly vulnerable? Is it likely, as Ortega 1 The collapse of complex societies 2 asserts, that 'The possibility that a civilization should die doubles our own mortality' (quoted in Mazzarino [ 1966: 171])? Many of course prefer to believe that modern civilization, with its scientific and technological capacity, its energy resources, and its knowledge of economics and history, should be able to survive whatever crises ancient and simpler societies found insurmountable. But how firm is this belief? Many persons who have some awareness of history no doubt harbor the suspicion, as Wilamowitz voiced regarding the Roman Empire, that 'Civilization can die, because it has already died once'
https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2020/09/part-1-collapse-of-complex.html