Yes, excesses have always proceeded empire and or financial collapse?
Nero had been Emperor of the Roman empire for just two weeks, when he was alerted to the fact that the largest standing army in the ancient world had all but emptied Rome's coffers!
His fleet was anchored near Egypt and standing by to load grain for the staving masses; or, sand and slaves etc for the arenas, where gladiatorial contests and the rape of 20 virgins by Jackasses; etc/etc, were planned.
You guessed it, insanity prevailed and sand and slaves were loaded and the guaranteed downfall of the Roman empire set in train?
The Great Depression and the more recent GFC were both preceded by the concentration of to much of our finite wealth in to few hands; and the inherent excesses of unbridled rat eat rat, extreme capitalism! Learning from history?
Well, the one lesson we learn from history; is, nobody learns the lessons of history.
But particularly those who believe that greed is good or has any justifiable place in business and commerce, which would be far better served by a cooperative approach/market regulation/the outing of all power hungry corporate psychopaths; and, genuine profit sharing win/win outcomes!
Excess as described. is arguably only available to those who have more money than they genuinely need; or, those who have too little and substitute good nutrition; for money saving high calorie lower cost substitutes!
Queen Antoinette, when told that the masses were starving and had no bread, replied, well let them eat cake.
This demonstrates just how far the better off are divorced from literal reality, which probably applies to an idealistic author, who arguably approaches the subject, with a head filled with intellectual concepts; and or, has never ever done it really tough; or struggled to survive?
Minimalist lifestyles? Try managing on the pittance we call a pension, while supporting a mortgage and ever increasing utility costs etc/etc. Rhrosty.

It's easy to see our world has grown increasingly complex since industrial revolution and introduction of energy subsides ergo fossil fuels. Not just the explosion in population, but also dramatic growth in almost all aspects of human society. The amount of resources we use, the number of artefacts available, the amount of waste produced, the size and complexity of our political and financial systems.

People hold a variety of viewpoints on the future of these increasingly complex systems, from the extreme optimism, technological progress to the extreme pessimism, imminent catastrophic collapse followed by a future of post-apocalyptic hardship. However, as the inherent un-sustainability of our current system slowly becomes ever more apparent, seldom more starkly so than the near total collapse of the financial system in 2008, then so too the question of risk becomes important. Risk can be hard to quantify, especially catastrophic risk, one way to approach that question is to model density.

Next, it's important to understand the difference between direct and contextual tipping points. The example of a straw that broke the camels back is a direct tipping point, whereas a forest fire is a contextual tipping point. Increasing the density of the forest by one more percent does not directly cause a firestorm, but it does cross a threshold where the chances of a firestorm greatly increases. Beyond that point all that was needed was a spark for catastrophe to follow, much like the spark that melted the global financial system.

There is another kind of tipping point, which engineers call "phase change." The load can be increased far beyond the point of equilibrium before it reaches a toggle point. An example of this might be the Greenland ice sheet, which can decay pretty far without substantial movement. Then, suddenly and without warning, the whole thing goes, something everyone thought should have happened much earlier. Or, using the straw-loading example, the calculated toggle point might be far exceeded before the camel's knees actually give out.

A sense of complacency might be a likely result when expected overloads do not result in collapse

And of course the beauty of claiming there is a 'tipping point' is that you can't possibly be proved wrong. Something happens? I told you so! Nothing happens? That just means we haven't hit the tipping point yet.

There are still diehard Marxists out there waiting for the 'inevitable' rise of the proletariat; I suspect the diehard alarmists will be waiting just as long for their 'tipping points' -- and with the same disappointing results.

Perhaps you did not see this in the other thread Jon J, or perhaps you did not understand what the research has shown:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1920168,00.html

In any event, things happen before we experience "tipping points" - the planet is "squealing" now.

Don't believe it? Ask population ecologists (a.k.a. 'climate scientists') about the impact of global warming on biodiversity, for example.

Hay bonny, perhaps if you spent less time waffling on here, you'd have time to keep up with the rush of science.

Or is this your assignment for the month.

Anyway good luck with your research.

Morning beeny,

I expected your small minded reply ... demonstrating yet again you haven't got a clue what you're talking about.

Anyway, thanks for the best wishes - the research is going well.