Dr. Patrick Ophuls (who writes under the pen name William Ophuls) is an American political scientist, ecologist, and author.
Interviewed by John Bell, Director of The Conciliators Guild, about his book 'Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail.'
And there's moar:
Tainter's complexity discussed, exponential growth. Patrick understands we are in a double bind. Collapse could be averted with massive changes that the American polity WON'T put up with. The speed of social change needed is impossibly fast. That is one side of this unity of opposites.
The other side of the bind is that normal social change is slow and being slow collapse happens before society makes any significant change.
People don't get that the peak always looks good.