The development of society and the principle of "minimizing efforts"/"acceptable crisis"

. The paper analyses the reasons for obvious resource saving and minimization of practical efforts made by society in the solution of significant problems that arise in the process of its development. This phenomenon is recorded in the life of societies of all taxonomic levels (from local groups to states, international unions, humanity in general). It can be referred to as the principle of "effort minimization". The main reasons for the use of this principle by society in its activities are the limited availability of resources, which implies a concentration of efforts on stopping the clip of central threats, as well as the ability of social subsystems in the development process in order to solve some problems without the regulatory involvement of management structures. For the global society, another significant reason is the maximum difficulty in the coordination of the efforts of a large number of actors. While there are significant differences in the methods, strategies and tools used by societies to remove threats, the very mechanism of response to them has several common features, similar stages ("blindness", fixation, practical efforts, effective activity). Minimizing regulatory actions for a long time, society actually contributes to the growth of some problems, deliberately allowing the onset of a crisis situation, with its subsequent regulation (the principle of "acceptable crisis"). It is possible to state that the development of civilization is fundamentally located in the risk zone. Moreover, such riskogenicity is the manifestation of a systemic algorithm responsible for the way of evolution not only of humanity, but of the entire biosphere. It does not secure against a catastrophic outcome (evidence is the disappearance of species and large "clusters" of living things; local societies, states, peoples, entire civilizations). At the same time, the growth of global risks correlates with the expansion of social ability to eliminate them. It remains to be hoped for the width of the time gap between the achievement of a critical level of actualization by global issues (forcing society to actively engage in the process of self-optimization) and the onset of catastrophic changes in the socio-natural system of the Earth, when any regulatory actions on the part of mankind will be useless


Introduction
The beginning of the third millennium is likely to become one of the turning periods in the development of human civilization.It is obvious, that the synchronous actualization of many global problems can not be a mere historical accident.Meanwhile, the rapidity of the ongoing changes reduces to a minimum the time to determine the most adequate to the circumstances of the forms and methods of action; the search and implementation of the most optimal solutions to the central problems of human development.

Problem Statement
The topical area of the study of the laws and basic principles of human society development has now lost its narrow academic character and has acquired elements of applied research.Diverging in details, a significant part of the international expert society recognizes the risky nature of the development of modern humanity, its entry into the area of extremely high social and socio-natural turbulence, fraught with a systemic crisis of civilization, and possibly its death [1].An alternative to this spontaneous evolution is consedered in the complex transition of society to the path of controlled, sustainable development [2][3][4].However, the question remains whether humanity is able to self-organize to the required extent, whether it has enough resources and time for such a systemic transition from one model of development to another.

Research Questions
The subject of research in presented by the principles used by society in the reduction and elimination of threats that arise in the process of its development; the study of the features of the public approach to the formation of a line of topical issues, the determination of the hierarchical correlation of its constituent elements.

Purpose of the Study
Having the significant similarities in the general development mechanism of social systems of different taxonomic levels (from local territorial communities to civilizational areas and humanity in general), the dynamics of such systems at each of the levels has a noticeable specificity and requires independent study.The purpose of this study is to analyze the principles used by earthly civilization in its practical activities to resolve the most pressing problems of its development; the study of the applied efficiency/safety of these principles as a tool for the evolutionary dynamics of human society.

Research Methods
The theoretical basis of the study is a general scientific system approach, the concept of co-evolution of society and the biosphere, as well as the concept of technohumanitarian balance developed within the framework of synergetics, as a necessary condition for the selfpreservation of civilization and its ability to overcome bottlenecks in its development.

Findings
The rapid growth of the scale of anthropogenic activity of humanity, correlated with the rapid scientific and technological progress and the growth of the productive power of society in the second half of the twentieth century.actualizes a wide range of global development problems.From 1960-1970s the global agenda remains the focus of the research community [3,[5][6][7][8][9].
The basic parameters of a possible evolutionary optimum and options for the transition of the earthy civilization to it were studied by a significant number of research groups, generalized and systematized in the final reports, reflected in mathematical models and fundamental monographs and presented at the most important international forums.The dozens of concepts of the future were developed on the basis of the predictive scenarios, which formed the substantive basis of modern futurology and global studies [4,5,7,[9][10][11].
However, despite the almost complete consensus of countries and peoples, their political and economic elites, as well as the general public on the urgent need for a transition to a sustainable development of human society, the evolution of earthly civilization continues to proceed in the area of high threats and risks.The central reason for this situation is obvious.The transition to a balanced development requires the practical coordination of the efforts of a huge number of political, corporate, ethno-cultural, group and other actors, the main goals of which often significantly contradict (and sometimes are opposite) each other.
To ensure such coordination is an impossible task for any social institution, no matter how broad powers it would be endowed with.For example, it is possible to imagine a much stronger version of the modern United Nations.However, neither it nor any other global organization with a significant managerial function is currently able to ensure the transition of civilization to a development path agreed upon for all its subsystems and clusters.
Does this mean that humanity is doomed exclusively to spontaneous, uncontrolled development?World history provides a significant number of examples of how a real social need has become a driving force that allows societies of different levels (from local societies to entire civilizations) to carry out the necessary systemic transformations.However the past contains no fewer examples of the opposite, when societies did not find an adequate response to the historical challenges received in the process of development and degraded or ceased to exist [12].
Thus, humanity has both positive and negative experience of self-organization, which is necessary to overcome the bottlenecks of historical development.Moreover, while there are significant differences in the methods, strategies, tools used by different societies in the solution of emerging problems, the very mechanism of reaction to them has a number of common features and, in particular, a similar stage character (moreover, for social systems belonging to all taxonomic levels from local territorial groups to whole states, international unions and humanity in general).
As a rule, the emergence of a new problem is unnoticed by society (the stage of "blindness").However, even being already noticed (stage of fixation), the problem does not immediately become the object of purposeful activity.Having fixed the presence of an undesirable phenomenon (process), society does not make efforts to eliminate it, relatively speaking, it takes a break, waiting for further dynamics of the problem.
Society begins to make certain efforts to resolve it (the stage of practical activity) if it not only did not vanish under the influence of any factors over time, but gradually maturing, it reached a level in its development from which its further ignoring is already unacceptable,.However, these actions are often very limited.Society continues to save on efforts to stop this threat.Only after the latter has moved to a level that poses a serious danger to the life of society, it begins to allocate resources that allow having a real impact on the dynamics of the problematic phenomenon (process).
The described stage-by-stage algorithm of the social approach to the solution of the arising problems can be designated as the principle of "effort minimization".In accordance with it, at first glance, practical activity seems to be a short-sighted and non-optimal approach.Indeed, the reduction of a deeply neglected problem often requires significantly more resources/efforts than at the stage of its inception or first fixation.
However, the activity on the principle of "effort minimization" has a strong causal justification.Society represents the most complex organism, including many subsystems and segments that are variously interconnected, correlating with each other in a direct and inverse way.The resultant of this multi-vector interaction can not be calculated and predicted.Especially taking into account the ability of social structures to resolve some problems of their development without the targeted intervention of the administrative structures of society (precisely due to the complex overlap of various social processes).In other words, in the process of social dynamics, some of the problems that have arisen earlier are resolved by itself, without special efforts from society.From a certain moment other components cease to increase their riskogenic potential.
At the same time, the number of problems which society faces always exceeds the number of available resources that can be allocated to solve the entire existing problem complex.In conditions of a constant lack of opportunities, society always faces the need for a clear assessment/gradation of a range of problems according to their level of relevance.That is, it is forced to concentrate its efforts on the reduction of the central threats to its existence, hoping that at least some of the problems of the second row will be settled in a natural way as a result of further dynamics.
In other words, without due attention to the problems that have arisen in the early stages of their development, society actually contributes to the growth of some of them to the level of a significant social threat.In fact, this way of tackling problems means the conscious assumption by society of a crisis situation, with its subsequent regulation (the principle of "acceptable crisis" ).
Thus, social problem that encourages society to effective practical action acquires the risk-generating potential of the only at a critically high level of its actualization.It is the urgent need to eliminate (or at least tangibly mitigate) a serious social threat that allows consolidating the work of many structures and subsystems of society in order to get out of the current critical situation.
The number of such elements and involved actors is especially large, requiring their coordination, just at the level of the entire earthly civilization (the highest in the taxonomic range of all social systems).For the global society, the maximum complexity of the consolidation of the efforts of various participants becomes the third factor (along with limited resources and the hope that the problem will be resolved by itself), which drags out the transition to the stage of effective activity to the limit.
A significant degree of neglect is required for each such global threat in order to realize this transition.In other words, a change in the powerful, inertial social structures and functional mechanisms of the modern world community, its shift towards a more commensurate form of its development can only proceed through a tangible push for the process of such optimization by the whole complex of global contradictions and imbalances -i.e. through a kind of "shock therapy", a deep crisis in certain spheres of human life (environmental, resource, demographic, economic, etc.).
The results of the evolution of society in accordance with this principle are quite clear.At the same time avoiding a global catastrophe (consistently all such forecasts based on extrapolation of existing trends do not come true), humanity does not solve these problems radically, keeping the situation at an explosive level (Figure 1).
It is possible to state that the development of civilization is fundamentally located in the zone of instability and risk.Moreover, it seems that such a high risk of development is the manifestation of a systemic algorithm responsible for the way and nature of the evolution of not only humanity, but the entire biosphere (possibly, matter in general) [12].Indeed, biological evolution, the growing complication of living forms, the process of cephalization, going through an endless series of large and small mutations, are just as "provocative" type of development, along with the fine line of the possible / unacceptable, as well as the historical dynamics of humanity.
These allows drawing several general conclusions.The development on the verge of collapse, "provoking" the laws of the world to eliminate the "presumptuous" element is the primary characteristic, the fundamental feature of the evolution of living matter and its earthly vanguard -humanity.Such a way of development, as evidenced by the history of the biosphere and human society, is not immune from a catastrophic outcome: the disappearance of individual species and large "clusters" of the living; local human societies, states, peoples and entire civilizations [13].
Accordingly, the scenario of a global catastrophe (the death of mankind and possibly the entire biosphere) is not excluded.However, such a scenario is inevitable by no means.The principle of unstable, risky development of living/intelligent matter is complemented by the work of a number of factors that, expanding and sharpening the problems of this development, simultaneously increase the viability and degree of adaptability of highly developed matter to the changing conditions of its existence.
For earthy civilization, such factors include scientific and technological progress."Globalizing" all human problems and contradictions (fraught with catastrophe no longer for local/regional societies and their host landscapes, but for the entire earthly civilization), science maximizes the productive power of humanity, opens up new opportunities in the field of forecasting, and expands the ability of society to systematically foresee the results of its actions [2,9].
Accordingly, the general ability of a civilization to take the necessary measures in terms of scale to stop/eliminate serious threats that arise in the process of development also increases.These new opportunities are not turned on by society at full capacity, because it continues to function in the algorithm of minimizing efforts on the principle of acceptable crisis and at present, monitoring the situation on the planet, does not find a strong need for the organization of fast and consolidated anti-crisis actions.
It is not a fact that when the critical moment for such actions comes, humanity will have enough competencies, resources and the same time for the necessary systemic adjustment.However, from the principle of development through a crisis (from a stable stay in the zone of instability and risk), it obviously will not give up in the future.with the principle of "minimizing efforts"/"acceptable crisis" Undoubtedly, the ever-wider entry into the socioeconomic practice of the green agenda, the very scale of the events planned within its framework is indicative; their preventive nature, designed for implementation with a horizon of several decades.The algorithm for minimizing anti-crisis efforts still remains central in the production activities of the global society.We can only hope that the width of the temporary backlash that exists between the achievement of a critical level of actualization by global issues (which will finally force society to actively engage in the process of selfoptimization) and the onset of catastrophic changes in the earth's socio-natural system, when any regulatory actions on the part of humanity will no longer be useful.
With the growth of anthropogenic pressure on the biosphere, the size of this time interval is reduced.However, at the same time the productive power of civilization, its instrumental capabilities to track the situation are rapidly increasing [12].Continuing to develop in the risk zone humanity currently resembles a cyclist who is saved from an inevitable fall by a constant increase in speed.

Conclusion
It seems that such a "self-accelerating" system as earthy civilization has only two prospects -a breakdown into a catastrophe or a breakthrough into a new social quality (it is necessary to note that each of them is polyvariant).The first perspective can mean both the death of the earth's civilization and its systemic rollback, similar one took place in the Mediterranean area of the 4 th -7 th centuries ad.The second scenario has earthy, cosmic and "combined" invariants, depending on the ratio of the main vectors of social shifts.
Their comparative analysis goes far beyond the topical area of this paper.In order to implement any of these three positive options for the future, in addition to the growing speed of technological change, cardinal institutional changes are needed in the main areas of social life of human society.In particular, it includes its transition to a more balanced development in the sociopolitical, environmental, economic, socio-demographic aspects, which implies, among other things, at least a partial departure from activities in accordance with the principles of "minimization of efforts" and "acceptable crisis".

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.Algorithm for solving significant problems of society's development in accordancewith the principle of "minimizing efforts"/"acceptable crisis"