Air Water Ground: All the Rage....

Are:

Williams-Sonoma "Agrarian" line
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/pages/agrarian.html?bnrid=3152401&cm_ven=BrandSearch&cm_cat=Google&cm_pla=BrandSiteLinks&cm_ite=agrarian+-+coming+april+2012&OVMTC=WebSite&site=&creative=5784058585&OVKEY=%2Bwilliam%20%2Bsonoma%20recipes&url_id=113016059&adpos=1t1

And

The growth of the Castle Doctrine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_doctrine and the Stand Your Ground laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law

Both examples of Tainter simplification as outlined in http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/The_Collapse_of_Complex_Societies ?

And are they specifically examples of "scanning behavior:
"When a society is facing diminishing returns, something Tainter calls "scanning behavior" appears. People become dissatisfied; ideological strife intensifies. The entire society starts looking around for a better way. Segments of society may adopt foreign ideologies or ways of life. Some of these may be perceived as subversive, while others are the height of fashion."
http://www.the-peoples-forum.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=4927

Spinning Away (Eno/Kale)

Up on a hill, as the day dissolves

With my pencil turning moments into line
High above in the violent sky
A silent silver plane – it draws a golden chain

One by one, all the stars appear
As the great winds of the planet spiral in
Spinning away, like the night sky at Arles
In the million insect storm, the constellations form

On a hill, under a raven sky
I have no idea exactly what I’ve drawn
Some kind of change, some kind of spinning away
With every single line moving further out in time
And now as the pale moon rides (in the stars)
Her form in my pale blue lines (in the stars)
And there, as the world rolls round (in the stars)
I draw, but the lines move round (in the stars)
There, as the great wheels blaze (in the stars)
I draw, but my drawing fades (in the stars)
And now, as the old sun dies (in the stars)
I draw, and the four winds sigh (in the stars)