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Modeling societal demise and reversal
Just like an army of ants caught in an ant mill, individuals, groups and even whole societies are sometimes caught up in a Death Spiral, a vicious cycle of self-reinforcing dysfunctional behavior characterized by continuous flawed decision making, myopic single-minded focus on one (set of) solution(s), denial, distrust, micromanagement, dogmatic thinking and learned helplessness. We propose the term Death Spiral Effect to describe this difficult-to-break downward spiral of societal decline. Specifically, in the current theory-building review we aim to: (a) more clearly define and describe the Death Spiral Effect; (b) model the downward spiral of societal decline as well as an upward spiral; (c) describe how and why individuals, groups and even society at large might be caught up in a Death Spiral; and (d) offer a positive way forward in terms of evidence-based solutions to escape the Death Spiral Effect. Management theory hints on the occurrence of this phenomenon and offers turn-around leadership as solution. On a societal level strengthening of democracy may be important. Prior research indicates that historically, two key factors trigger this type of societal decline: rising inequalities creating an upper layer of elites and a lower layer of masses; and dwindling (access to) resources. Historical key markers of societal decline are a steep increase in inequalities, government overreach, over-integration (interdependencies in networks) and a rapidly decreasing trust in i...
Based on the above considerations, here we formally define the Death Spiral Effect as: A vicious cycle of self-reinforcing dysfunctional behavior, characterized by continuous flawed decision making, myopic single-minded focus on one (set of) solution(s), resource loss, denial, distrust, micromanagement, dogmatic thinking and learned helplessness. Combined with the (in hindsight) overestimation made by experts of the expected infection fatality and of the buffering effects of several aggressive measures ( Chin et al., 2021; Ioannidis et al., 2022; Pezzullo et al., 2023) led to a disastrous chain of self-perpetuating decision-making ( Magness and Earle, 2021; Murphy, 2021). Note that while most social problems are bigger in unequal countries, suicide and smoking levels are often higher in contemporary relatively equal societies, as aggression and violence is turned inward, and often will be directed at the self, as people tend to blame themselves when things are not great ( Wilkinson and Pickett R., 2009).
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