NationStates Jolt Archive

I just read the book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fall or Succeed by Jared Diamond. It was just published, so I doubt many have read it yet, but it has an interesting thesis. Societies rise or fall based on their management and use of resources. It showed some past societies, such as the mideival Japanese, Easter Islanders, and Mangareva, and showed how some thrived, while others vanished. Then it drew parallels to our society, and showed a few countries, like Rwanda and Haiti, where resource depletion has already caused a near collapse. It concluded by saying that resource problems will manifest themselves in the first world, but at the same time, a response is materializing just as fast.
I disagree with his thesis for the most part. For one, he relied on facts that have had little or no relevance to anything today or since, like the "lack" of usuable sunlight. For another, he iis quite pessimistic about a human response. The advances in technology and living standards have helped reduced environmental impact per person, a central point of his arguement. Fertility rates are also slowing tremendously, and in some countries, there is negative population growth without the presence of a public health disaster. This will help reduce resource consumption and waste production in developed regions, while enabling developing nations to develope. Then again, this guy also called the developement of agriculture "humanity's greatest mistake".

I've read some of his previous book, guns, Germs, and Steel which is quite fascinating. He is a really smart guy, but I can't really comment on his new work.

I've read some of his previous book, guns, Germs, and Steel which is quite fascinating. He is a really smart guy, but I can't really comment on his new work.
I haven't read that, though I have heard it is great. I have heard about its thesis, and I disagree with it entirely. Western civilization was helped by guns, germs and steel, but he got the root of their invention wrong. They were invented (with the exception of germs) because innovation was rife, there was fierce competition in Europe, and people were open to try new things. He says he is free from ecological determinism, yet he seems to have it.

As it is common to see in the markets, we are in a period of change. We are at the crossroads where the oil economy will make way for the next generation of economic bases. It will take a few decades, and it won't happen all at once, but the markets will even out the problems in the ways they normally do. After all, car manufacturers won't keep selling gasoline powered automobiles if the price of gas rises horrendously.

The markets are very useful and will correct for failings.

I don't think that a lack of resources will cause an economic collapse. We are already simulating and compensating for a lot of rare things, and a further restriction on these things will only increase the speed that industries compensate for it.

Society will fall...You watch...:evil:

I haven't read that, though I have heard it is great. I have heard about its thesis, and I disagree with it entirely. Western civilization was helped by guns, germs and steel, but he got the root of their invention wrong. They were invented (with the exception of germs) because innovation was rife, there was fierce competition in Europe, and people were open to try new things. He says he is free from ecological determinism, yet he seems to have it.
I read it a while ago, and didn't finish it either, but his analysis of the developemnet of societies in terms of ecology and surroundings are very convincing. For instance, regions with grains, and large animals that could be domesticated, became much more complex societies and changed more quickly than stone-age trbes that have stayed the same since...well, a long time. I didn't get up to the modern era though, so i dunno what his deal with guns, germs and steel is.

As it is common to see in the markets, we are in a period of change. We are at the crossroads where the oil economy will make way for the next generation of economic bases. It will take a few decades, and it won't happen all at once, but the markets will even out the problems in the ways they normally do. After all, car manufacturers won't keep selling gasoline powered automobiles if the price of gas rises horrendously.

The markets are very useful and will correct for failings.
I believe that too. I voted that our course is sustainable, but the present one actually is not. Instead, the markets should make it that way, and rather or not the transition should be smooth or bumpy won't matter. At least there won't be earth shattering changes, like those endured under Stalin's rapid industrialization.

I believe that too. I voted that our course is sustainable, but the present one actually is not. Instead, the markets should make it that way, and rather or not the transition should be smooth or bumpy won't matter. At least there won't be earth shattering changes, like those endured under Stalin's rapid industrialization.
Agreed, whilst the markets are not perfect, they will get the job done.

I read it a while ago, and didn't finish it either, but his analysis of the developemnet of societies in terms of ecology and surroundings are very convincing. For instance, regions with grains, and large animals that could be domesticated, became much more complex societies and changed more quickly than stone-age trbes that have stayed the same since...well, a long time. I didn't get up to the modern era though, so i dunno what his deal with guns, germs and steel is.
That's true, but there are anomilies. Afghanistan was once home to advanced societies, but look at it now. Same with Ethiopia or Mali. The areas that are now the US, on the other hand, never had any societies that were terribly advanced: no writing, cities, or central governments (with the possible exception of the Iroquois). Yet the US today is the most powerful nation on the planet. Why?

I read it a while ago, and didn't finish it either, but his analysis of the developemnet of societies in terms of ecology and surroundings are very convincing. For instance, regions with grains, and large animals that could be domesticated, became much more complex societies and changed more quickly than stone-age trbes that have stayed the same since...well, a long time. I didn't get up to the modern era though, so i dunno what his deal with guns, germs and steel is.
I'd agree he puts up a convincing arguement that geography plays a major role in the development of cultures, but I don't think that it's the only one. I'd have to say that cultural dynamics of various sorts are about equally important.

I'd agree he puts up a convincing arguement that geography plays a major role in the development of cultures, but I don't think that it's the only one. I'd have to say that cultural dynamics of various sorts are about equally important.
But where do these cultural dynamics arise from? Clearly, its the structure of the society they exist in, which he argues, is created by the natural resources available. What cultural dynamics can be independant of the initial conditions that steer a society in a particular direction?

Well, it's not doing too bad for a big "boring" history book on a guy that is a geologist by trade. Amazon ranks it as its 15th best seller.

But where do these cultural dynamics arise from? Clearly, its the structure of the society they exist in, which he argues, is created by the natural resources available. What cultural dynamics can be independant of the initial conditions that steer a society in a particular direction?
Things like religion (espescially if it's imported, like Christianity is in so many places,) levels of individualism, artistic concepts, food preparation, studies of foreign cultures, etc.

But where do these cultural dynamics arise from? Clearly, its the structure of the society they exist in, which he argues, is created by the natural resources available. What cultural dynamics can be independant of the initial conditions that steer a society in a particular direction?
How these people choose to use what they have. It's one of the big economic questions, and shapes a society. Geography can only go so far. Russia has several natural resources and many ways to transport them, and yet they are poor. Until about twenty years ago, Korea was always the world's basketcase, despite its rich farmland, many harbors, and in the north's case, several natural resources. Conversly, many rich societies have no resources they can obtain on their own.

Just curious: Mystic Mindinao, were you once Purly Euclid?

Just curious: Mystic Mindinao, were you once Purly Euclid?
Once upon a time, yes. Why?

Once upon a time, yes. Why?

Just curious. ;)

Just curious. ;)
Well, it was a really good guess on your part.

Just started the book. So far so good. :)

For the poll, other. It's going to end up a race between how fast we can economically apply technological solutions, IMO.

I haven't read that, though I have heard it is great. I have heard about its thesis, and I disagree with it entirely. Western civilization was helped by guns, germs and steel, but he got the root of their invention wrong. They were invented (with the exception of germs) because innovation was rife, there was fierce competition in Europe, and people were open to try new things. He says he is free from ecological determinism, yet he seems to have it.

But, IIRC, he does explain the fierce competion in terms of geography. I seem to recall that he explained the rise of Europe while China stagnated, as steming the natural geographic divisions of the various peninsulas plus the alps, wereas China didn't have these. As a result, China's government was able to stifle competition.
But I do agree that he shows a strong degree of geographic determinism.

But, IIRC, he does explain the fierce competion in terms of geography. I seem to recall that he explained the rise of Europe while China stagnated, as steming the natural geographic divisions of the various peninsulas plus the alps, wereas China didn't have these. As a result, China's government was able to stifle competition.
But I do agree that he shows a strong degree of geographic determinism.
Oh, that is definatly true. The Roman Empire was the only entity that conquered Europe long enough to make an impact. Others that tried, like Charles V, Napoleon, and Hitler, failed, in part because these barriers made supplying their armies difficult, and the cultural and linguistic barriers as a result were great.
But the European model of life needed only to start in Europe. After then, it could be applied anywhere. The US used it, and so did Japan. Now, most of Asia and Latin America are applying it. The Middle East seems like it may get there, too.

bump

I haven't read that, though I have heard it is great. I have heard about its thesis, and I disagree with it entirely. Western civilization was helped by guns, germs and steel, but he got the root of their invention wrong. They were invented (with the exception of germs) because innovation was rife, there was fierce competition in Europe, and people were open to try new things. He says he is free from ecological determinism, yet he seems to have it.

I read GGS and I loved it. I especially loved that even though he endorses most moder liberal approaches to things, he can't be accused of all the things that conservatives usually accuse liberals of (except being well educated) because so many business leaders agree that he's absolutly right.

Just started the book. So far so good. :)

For the poll, other. It's going to end up a race between how fast we can economically apply technological solutions, IMO.



But, IIRC, he does explain the fierce competion in terms of geography. I seem to recall that he explained the rise of Europe while China stagnated, as steming the natural geographic divisions of the various peninsulas plus the alps, wereas China didn't have these. As a result, China's government was able to stifle competition.
But I do agree that he shows a strong degree of geographic determinism.


It was partly a matter of barriers, but not exactly barriers in the case of China. China had so few barriers that it was able to expand all over east Asia because of the food base provided by the irrigation systems from their two main rivers. Sheer manpower allowed them to overcome all adversaries and allowed them to use resources efficiently.

No one in Europe had that advantage because any part of Europe is able to feed about as many as any other part. A self proclaimed emperor in Austriacould demand that a duke in Western France send him half his wheat every year, but he'd better be ready to come and get it because Austria can't feed any more people than Normandy and whatever else you think about the French, they're passionate about their food. So whatever empire might form in Europe will be inclined to fall apart because they'll all complain that their stuff is being used to help other people. Sort of like in the US, if it wasn't for the fact that all of the people who bitch about taxes benifit so much from them then we'd have had a civil war over taxes years ago.

Rome was able to conquer Europe because they had a better agricultural base than Europe, which was still pretty much a loosely associated group of neo-lithic tribes (neolithic in social structure, not technology). By the Middle Ages all of Europe had the same weapons technology.

In China there was a lot of incentive to remain an empire because everyone benifits to some degree from a centralized government to build granaries and fight mongols.

What led to China stagnating was that they were the only centralized power with no horizons left unconquered.

In Europe they all kept competing with eachother, but no one had an advantage, so they kept building stronger and stronger armies with more power per soldier than before. In China they could afford to just use more soldiers.

I said 'yes, but it will correct itself in the next few decades'. This is what I hope will happen, but with current leadership in the world, this doesn't look like it will happen. If we get a leadership change worldwide, it could change for the better. I think this is quite possible, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I read GGS and I loved it. I especially loved that even though he endorses most moder liberal approaches to things, he can't be accused of all the things that conservatives usually accuse liberals of (except being well educated) because so many business leaders agree that he's absolutly right.
I disagree with him, however, based on ideaological grounds. He seems to think that the solutioin is a world wide socialist toltalitarian state.

Until about twenty years ago, Korea was always the world's basketcase, despite its rich farmland, many harbors, and in the north's case, several natural resources.
They did have the misfortune of being located smack between China and Japan... however, they also lay claim to the first movable type printing press and the oldest existing observatory in Asia.

I haven't read that, though I have heard it is great. I have heard about its thesis, and I disagree with it entirely. Western civilization was helped by guns, germs and steel, but he got the root of their invention wrong. They were invented (with the exception of germs) because innovation was rife, there was fierce competition in Europe, and people were open to try new things. He says he is free from ecological determinism, yet he seems to have it.


Indeed you have not read it.

What the book does is explain innovation &c. and their predominance in europe and asia as a function largely of geography.

It quite deservedly won the pulitzer prize and you (along with most everyone else) ought to read it.

Indeed you have not read it.

What the book does is explain innovation &c. and their predominance in europe and asia as a function largely of geography.

It quite deservedly won the pulitzer prize and you (along with most everyone else) ought to read it.
But geographics can only go so far. Management and ideaology take innovation all the way, as what happened in Europe, but not Asia.

I disagree with him, however, based on ideaological grounds. He seems to think that the solutioin is a world wide socialist toltalitarian state.

Well ideological grounds aren't much of a basis for believing anything. It's like saying "I've already decided to agree with people who don't like the book."

I don't see how he argues in favor of a world wide socialist totalitariansim. He says that an environment of competition in which the various competitors are protected from outright destruction is the best route to advancement.

e.g. if the Federal government only interfered in interstate politics, not merely anything that could concievably affect the interstate economy in any way no matter how trivial, then the various states would be allowed to try new ideas and make their own mistakes and eventually they'd all learn the best way to do everything.

He argues in favor of a promotion of contact and competition, not socialist totalitarianism.

But geographics can only go so far. Management and ideaology take innovation all the way, as what happened in Europe, but not Asia.

There had been plenty of innovation in Asia. At about the time that Europe first started establishing their empires China had the military power to conquer the world. They just didn't have the incentive. They expanded to the west until they encountered mountains, to the north until they encountered tundra, to the east until they encountered water, and the south until everyone gave up and sent them tribute in exchange for not being invaded.

Europe was driven by constant competition with each nation against another, and they always had incentive to move outward because they always had enemies just as powerful as they were.

Both societies would have had plenty of people who both argued in favor of finding new ways to do things and those who argued to get rid of new ways to do things. Take a look at our own religous leaders who argue against stem cell research. In a society of strong competition those who argue in favor of stagnation will have a hard time getting heard, the innovators will be favored. When large empires get slow and lumbering it starts to pay more attention to the societal dinosaurs like the Pats Robertson and Buchannan.

There had been plenty of innovation in Asia. At about the time that Europe first started establishing their empires China had the military power to conquer the world. They just didn't have the incentive. They expanded to the west until they encountered mountains, to the north until they encountered tundra, to the east until they encountered water, and the south until everyone gave up and sent them tribute in exchange for not being invaded.

Europe was driven by constant competition with each nation against another, and they always had incentive to move outward because they always had enemies just as powerful as they were.

Both societies would have had plenty of people who both argued in favor of finding new ways to do things and those who argued to get rid of new ways to do things. Take a look at our own religous leaders who argue against stem cell research. In a society of strong competition those who argue in favor of stagnation will have a hard time getting heard, the innovators will be favored. When large empires get slow and lumbering it starts to pay more attention to the societal dinosaurs like the Pats Robertson and Buchannan.

Very true. That's why a society's attitude needs to be one of constant advancement. I believe that a socoiety that embraces a free market has that attitude, though they can loose it somewhere along the way. Nevertheless, if you are making parallels to the US, I don't see why. The factions against innovation are not yet strong enojiugh, and probably won't be ever.

Well, it's not doing too bad for a big "boring" history book on a guy that is a geologist by trade.

A geologist? Called Jared Diamond?

That is THE coolest thing ever!!!

A geologist? Called Jared Diamond?

That is THE coolest thing ever!!!
I'm sure his colleagues tease him mercilessly over that.

That's true, but there are anomilies. Afghanistan was once home to advanced societies, but look at it now. Same with Ethiopia or Mali. The areas that are now the US, on the other hand, never had any societies that were terribly advanced: no writing, cities, or central governments (with the possible exception of the Iroquois). Yet the US today is the most powerful nation on the planet. Why?

First, I think you should read the book before commenting on it. The question you just asked is very clearly adressed. I have not read Collapse yet, but it is sitting on my bookshelf. I just think you have a mis-understanding of Guns, Germs, and Steel. Just read the book and it will answer all your questions. Very few men on this planet even attempt to question Jared Diamond and your arguments against him I find to be un-educated and lacking proper understanding of the text at best. Maybe you should go back and read it again, and while your at it read Guns, Germs, and Steel.

First, I think you should read the book before commenting on it. The question you just asked is very clearly adressed. I have not read Collapse yet, but it is sitting on my bookshelf. I just think you have a mis-understanding of Guns, Germs, and Steel. Just read the book and it will answer all your questions. Very few men on this planet even attempt to question Jared Diamond and your arguments against him I find to be un-educated and lacking proper understanding of the text at best. Maybe you should go back and read it again, and while your at it read Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Well, it seems like the jist of his book is self-explanitory. Nevertheless, this is more of a discussion on his second book.

Ok, I will keep it on topic. I have just began reading his book today and will get back to this thread when I am finished, however I am sure I will again disagree with you. Jared Diamond researches everything very meticulously and I think you probably just misunderstood part of the book. Schoolars around the world praise his books and they are widely accepted as fact. Although he might not be entirely right I believe you have failed to understand the purpose of Collapse. If you really think the modern world is not going down hill then you would be one of the most naive people I have ever met. Really analyze the situtation which the first worlds are in, especially the US. I think if you think a little harder you might change your mind.

You also insinuate that Jared Diamond was stupid in saying that farming was our biggest mistake but his reasons behind his statement, although subject entirely to opinion are quite good.

Here is what he said:

For a picture enhanced copy visit: http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/diamondmistake.html

Opinion
The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
By Jared Diamond
University of California at Los Angeles Medical School

Discover Magazine, May 1987

Pages 64-66

Illustrations by Elliott Danfield

To science we owe dramatic changes in our smug self-image. Astronomy taught us that our earth isn’t the center of the universe but merely one of billions of heavenly bodies. From biology we learned that we weren’t specially created by God but evolved along with millions of other species. Now archaeology is demolishing another sacred belief: that human history over the past million years has been a long tale of progress. In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence.

At first, the evidence against this revisionist interpretation will strike twentieth century Americans as irrefutable. We’re better off in almost every respect than people of the Middle Ages, who in turn had it easier than cavemen, who in turn were better off than apes. Just count our advantages. We enjoy the most abundant and varied foods, the best tools and material goods, some of the longest and healthiest lives, in history. Most of us are safe from starvation and predators. We get our energy from oil and machines, not from our sweat. What neo-Luddite among us would trade his life for that of a medieval peasant, a caveman, or an ape?



For most of our history we supported ourselves by hunting and gathering: we hunted wild animals and foraged for wild plants. It’s a life that philosophers have traditionally regarded as nasty, brutish, and short. Since no food is grown and little is stored, there is (in this view) no respite from the struggle that starts anew each day to find wild foods and avoid starving. Our escape from this misery was facilitated only 10,000 years ago, when in different parts of the world people began to domesticate plants and animals. The agricultural revolution spread until today it’s nearly universal and few tribes of hunter-gatherers survive.

From the progressivist perspective on which I was brought up, to ask "Why did almost all our hunter-gatherer ancestors adopt agriculture?" is silly. Of course they adopted it because agriculture is an efficient way to get more food for less work. Planted crops yield far more tons per acre than roots and berries. Just imagine a band of savages, exhausted from searching for nuts or chasing wild animals, suddenly grazing for the first time at a fruit-laden orchard or a pasture full of sheep. How many milliseconds do you think it would take them to appreciate the advantages of agriculture?

The progressivist party line sometimes even goes so far as to credit agriculture with the remarkable flowering of art that has taken place over the past few thousand years. Since crops can be stored, and since it takes less time to pick food from a garden than to find it in the wild, agriculture gave us free time that hunter-gatherers never had. Thus it was agriculture that enabled us to build the Parthenon and compose the B-minor Mass.

While the case for the progressivist view seems overwhelming, it’s hard to prove. How do you show that the lives of people 10,000 years ago got better when they abandoned hunting and gathering for farming? Until recently, archaeologists had to resort to indirect tests, whose results (surprisingly) failed to support the progressivist view. Here’s one example of an indirect test: Are twentieth century hunter-gatherers really worse off than farmers? Scattered throughout the world, several dozen groups of so-called primitive people, like the Kalahari bushmen, continue to support themselves that way. It turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal, and work less hard than their farming neighbors. For instance, the average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only 12 to 19 hours for one group of Bushmen, 14 hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania. One Bushman, when asked why he hadn’t emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, "Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?"

While farmers concentrate on high-carbohydrate crops like rice and potatoes, the mix of wild plants and animals in the diets of surviving hunter-gatherers provides more protein and a bettter balance of other nutrients. In one study, the Bushmen’s average daily food intake (during a month when food was plentiful) was 2,140 calories and 93 grams of protein, considerably greater than the recommended daily allowance for people of their size. It’s almost inconceivable that Bushmen, who eat 75 or so wild plants, could die of starvation the way hundreds of thousands of Irish farmers and their families did during the potato famine of the 1840s.

So the lives of at least the surviving hunter-gatherers aren’t nasty and brutish, even though farmes have pushed them into some of the world’s worst real estate. But modern hunter-gatherer societies that have rubbed shoulders with farming societies for thousands of years don’t tell us about conditions before the agricultural revolution. The progressivist view is really making a claim about the distant past: that the lives of primitive people improved when they switched from gathering to farming. Archaeologists can date that switch by distinguishing remains of wild plants and animals from those of domesticated ones in prehistoric garbage dumps.

How can one deduce the health of the prehistoric garbage makers, and thereby directly test the progressivist view? That question has become answerable only in recent years, in part through the newly emerging techniques of paleopathology, the study of signs of disease in the remains of ancient peoples.

In some lucky situations, the paleopathologist has almost as much material to study as a pathologist today. For example, archaeologists in the Chilean deserts found well preserved mummies whose medical conditions at time of death could be determined by autopsy (Discover, October). And feces of long-dead Indians who lived in dry caves in Nevada remain sufficiently well preserved to be examined for hookworm and other parasites.

Usually the only human remains available for study are skeletons, but they permit a surprising number of deductions. To begin with, a skeleton reveals its owner’s sex, weight, and approximate age. In the few cases where there are many skeletons, one can construct mortality tables like the ones life insurance companies use to calculate expected life span and risk of death at any given age. Paleopathologists can also calculate growth rates by measuring bones of people of different ages, examine teeth for enamel defects (signs of childhood malnutrition), and recognize scars left on bones by anemia, tuberculosis, leprosy, and other diseases.

One straight forward example of what paleopathologists have learned from skeletons concerns historical changes in height. Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunger-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5’ 9" for men, 5’ 5" for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B. C. had reached a low of only 5’ 3" for men, 5’ for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors.

Another example of paleopathology at work is the study of Indian skeletons from burial mounds in the Illinois and Ohio river valleys. At Dickson Mounds, located near the confluence of the Spoon and Illinois rivers, archaeologists have excavated some 800 skeletons that paint a picture of the health changes that occurred when a hunter-gatherer culture gave way to intensive maize farming around A. D. 1150. Studies by George Armelagos and his colleagues then at the University of Massachusetts show these early farmers paid a price for their new-found livelihood. Compared to the hunter-gatherers who preceded them, the farmers had a nearly 50 per cent increase in enamel defects indicative of malnutrition, a fourfold increase in iron-deficiency anemia (evidenced bya bone condition called porotic hyperostosis), a theefold rise in bone lesions reflecting infectious disease in general, and an increase in degenerative conditions of the spine, probably reflecting a lot of hard physical labor. "Life expectancy at birth in the pre-agricultural community was bout twenty-six years," says Armelagos, "but in the post-agricultural community it was nineteen years. So these episodes of nutritional stress and infectious disease were seriously affecting their ability to survive."

The evidence suggests that the Indians at Dickson Mounds, like many other primitive peoples, took up farming not by choice but from necessity in order to feed their constantly growing numbers. "I don’t think most hunger-gatherers farmed until they had to, and when they switched to farming they traded quality for quantity," says Mark Cohen of the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, co-editor with Armelagos, of one of the seminal books in the field, Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture. "When I first started making that argument ten years ago, not many people agreed with me. Now it’s become a respectable, albeit controversial, side of the debate."

There are at least three sets of reasons to explain the findings that agriculture was bad for health. First, hunter-gatherers enjoyed a varied diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition. (today just three high-carbohydrate plants–wheat, rice, and corn–provide the bulk of the calories consumed by the human species, yet each one is deficient in certain vitamins or amino acids essential to life.) Second, because of dependence on a limited number of crops, farmers ran the risk of starvation if one crop failed. Finally, the mere fact that agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded societies, many of which then carried on trade with other crowded societies, led to the spread of parasites and infectious disease. (Some archaeologists think it was the crowding, rather than agriculture, that promoted disease, but this is a chicken-and-egg argument, because crowding encourages agriculture and vice versa.) Epidemics couldn’t take hold when populations were scattered in small bands that constantly shifted camp. Tuberculosis and diarrheal disease had to await the rise of farming, measles and bubonic plague the appearnce of large cities.



Besides malnutrition, starvation, and epidemic diseases, farming helped bring another curse upon humanity: deep class divisions. Hunter-gatherers have little or no stored food, and no concentrated food sources, like an orchard or a herd of cows: they live off the wild plants and animals they obtain each day. Therefore, there can be no kings, no class of social parasites who grow fat on food seized from others. Only in a farming population could a healthy, non-producing élite set itself above the disease-ridden masses. Skeletons from Greek tombs at Mycenae c. 1500 B. C. suggest that royals enjoyed a better diet than commoners, since the royal skeletons were two or three inches taller and had better teeth (on the average, one instead of six cavities or missing teeth). Among Chilean mummies from c. A. D. 1000, the élite were distinguished not only by ornaments and gold hair clips but also by a fourfold lower rate of bone lesions caused by disease.

Similar contrasts in nutrition and health persist on a global scale today. To people in rich countries like the U. S., it sounds ridiculous to extol the virtues of hunting and gathering. But Americans are an élite, dependent on oil and minerals that must often be iimproted from countries with poorer health and nutrition. If one could choose between being a peasant farmer in Ethiopia or a bushman gatherer in the Kalahari, which do you think would be the better choice?

Farming may have encouraged inequality between the sexes, as well. Freed from the need to transport their babies during a nomadic existence, and under pressure to produce more hands to till the fields, farming women tended to have more frequent pregnancies than their hunter-gatherer counterparts–with consequent drains on their health. Among the Chilean mummies for example, more women than men had bone lesions from infectious disease.

Women in agricultural societies were sometimes made beasts of burden. In New Guinea farming communities today I often see women staggering under loads of vegetables and firewood while the men walk empty-handed. Once while on a field trip there studying birds, I offered to pay some villagers to carry supplies from an airstrip to my mountain camp. The heaviest item was a 110-pound bag of rice, which I lashed to a pole and assigned to a team of four men to shoulder together. When I eventually caught up with the villagers, the men were carrying light loads, while one small woman weighing less than the bag of rice was bent under it, supporting its weight by a cord across her temples.

As for the claim that agriculture encouraged the flowering of art by providing us with leisure time, modern hunter-gatherers have at least as much free time as do farmers. The whole emphasis on leisure time as a critical factor seems to me misguided. Gorillas have had ample free time to build their own Parthenon, had they wanted to. While post-agricultural technological advances did make new art forms possible and preservation of art easier, great paintings and sculptures were already being produced by hunter-gatherers 15,000 years ago, and were still being produced as recently as the last century by such hunter-gatherers as some Eskimos and the Indians of the Pacific Northwest.

Thus with the advent of agriculture and élite became better off, but most people became worse off. Instead of swallowing the progressivist party line that we chose agriculture because it was good for us, we must ask how we got trapped by it despite its pitfalls.

One answer boils down to the adage "Might makes right." Farming could support many more people than hunting, albeit with a poorer quality of life. (Population densities of hunter-gatherers are rarely over on eperson per ten square miles, while farmers average 100 times that.) Partly, this is because a field planted entirely in edible crops lets one feed far more mouths than a forest with scattered edible plants. Partly, too, it’s because nomadic hunter-gatherers have to keep their children spaced at four-year intervals by infanticide and other means, since a mother must carry her toddler until it’s old enough to keep up with the adults. Because farm women don’t have that burden, they can and often do bear a child every two years.

As population densities of hunter-gatherers slowly rose at the end of the ice ages, bands had to choose between feeding more mouths by taking the first steps toward agriculture, or else finding ways to limit growth. Some bands chose the former solution, unable to anticipate the evils of farming, and seduced by the transient abundance they enjoyed until population growth caught up with increased food production. Such bands outbred and then drove off or killed the bands that chose to remain hunter-gatherers, because a hundred malnourished farmers can still outfight one healthy hunter. It’s not that hunter-gatherers abandonded their life style, but that those sensible enough not to abandon it were forced out of all areas except the ones farmers didn’t want.

At this point it’s instructive to recall the common complaint that archaeology is a luxury, concerned with the remote past, and offering no lessons for the present. Archaeologists studying the rise of farming have reconstructed a crucial stage at which we made the worst mistake in human history. Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.

Hunter-gatherers practiced the most successful and logest-lasting life style in human history. In contrast, we’re still struggling with the mess into which agriculture has tumbled us, and it’s unclear whether we can solve it. Suppose that an archaeologist who had visited from outer space were trying to explain human history to his fellow spacelings. He might illustrate the results of his digs by a 24-hour clock on which one hour represents 100,000 years of real past time. If the history of the human race began at midnight, then we would now be almost at the end of our first day. We lived as hunter-gatherers for nearly the whole of that day, from midnight through dawn, noon, and sunset. Finally, at 11:54 p. m. we adopted agriculture. As our second midnight approaches, will the plight of famine-stricken peasants gradually spread to engulf us all? Or will we somehow achieve those seductive blessings that we imagine behind agriculture’s glittering façade, and that have so far eluded us?

So, why am I debating with you? You are clearly an ideaologue.

I disagree with him, however, based on ideaological grounds. He seems to think that the solutioin is a world wide socialist toltalitarian state.

So, why am I debating with you? You are clearly an ideaologue.

Does anyone else think Mindinao is suffering a bit of cognitive dissonance here?

I'm sure his colleagues tease him mercilessly over that.

Does anyone else think Mindinao is suffering a bit of cognitive dissonance here?
It is possible to be both an idealist and a realist. I believe that I am one. I do not let it obscure my perception of problems, but rather, figure out solutions. Think of my ideaology as a checklist to allow certain solutions through.

Think of my ideaology as a checklist to allow certain solutions through.

Umm, if you're willing to reject possible solutions to a problem out of hand, regardless of their merits, simply because they disagree with your idealogy, then guess what? You're an idealogue. No one (except possibly you) is arguing that it's necessarily a bad thing, so why keep denying it? Just accept it and move on with your life.

Umm, if you're willing to reject possible solutions to a problem out of hand, regardless of their merits, simply because they disagree with your idealogy, then guess what? You're an idealogue. No one (except possibly you) is arguing that it's necessarily a bad thing, so why keep denying it? Just accept it and move on with your life.
I'm not arguing it is a bad thing. But one needs to argue with an ideaologue at a more basic level.

Oh, so now I am stupid. You don't need to argue with me on a more basic level. All you need to do is learn how to understand things. I have read the preface to Collapse and already found that you are wrong in some of your original assumptions. I don't know who you think you are to argue with Jared Diamond. Unless you are a Proffessor in the field which his book addresses I think you should reconsider your statements, because you dont have any clue what you are talking about. Dis-agreeing with Diamond is fine, but your statements about his thesis are absurd, and lead the reader to believe you didn't even read the Preface, let alone the whole book. Go back and read the book again, and then come back and see if you have changed your mind. I should email Diamond and have him come give this debate a little twist. He would ram you into the ground in a debate, and quite frankly it wouldn't be to difficult given your ignorant statements.

What's all this about the economy and societal collapse?
Everybody knows that gay marriage is what will destroy civilization!

:D

One of the things anyway, America, or in other words the Global Culture, needs to worry more about the main land and stop spending money on a war we allready won. We need to finish up in Iraq asd get the hell out of there so they can go back to killing each other.

Everybody knows that gay marriage is what will destroy civilization!


indeed. just look at what it did to the maya.

There are plenty of other places on this forum to dicuss gay marraige, and although I don't agree with it we should stay on topic here, as I don't think Gay Marraige would lead to societal collapse.

Oh, so now I am stupid. You don't need to argue with me on a more basic level. All you need to do is learn how to understand things. I have read the preface to Collapse and already found that you are wrong in some of your original assumptions. I don't know who you think you are to argue with Jared Diamond. Unless you are a Proffessor in the field which his book addresses I think you should reconsider your statements, because you dont have any clue what you are talking about. Dis-agreeing with Diamond is fine, but your statements about his thesis are absurd, and lead the reader to believe you didn't even read the Preface, let alone the whole book. Go back and read the book again, and then come back and see if you have changed your mind. I should email Diamond and have him come give this debate a little twist. He would ram you into the ground in a debate, and quite frankly it wouldn't be to difficult given your ignorant statements.
OOH! I am so scared.

If you answer things in such an arrogant manner, it make you look stupid, but if that is how you want to be viewed fine.

Trnaslation for Ignorant People: Since he had nothing better to say, than OH, I'm scared, he is signifying that I am right, because he has nothing to debate it with, and that he is ignorant because he didn't argue against it.

And I wasn't trying to scare you.

I haven't read that, though I have heard it is great. I have heard about its thesis, and I disagree with it entirely. Western civilization was helped by guns, germs and steel, but he got the root of their invention wrong. They were invented (with the exception of germs) because innovation was rife, there was fierce competition in Europe, and people were open to try new things. He says he is free from ecological determinism, yet he seems to have it.

But they weren't invented there. He points out that Japan had more, and better guns than anywhere else in the world by the 1500's, but they abandoned them because they were relativly safe on a little island and there was a romanticisation of sword combat.

Ecology has quite a bit to do with Europe keeping its guns because if anyone in Europe tried to get rid of guns (and there was some social pressure to do so) then they'd have been conqured by a neighboring nation that had not gotten rid of guns.

One of the things anyway, America, or in other words the Global Culture, needs to worry more about the main land and stop spending money on a war we allready won. We need to finish up in Iraq asd get the hell out of there so they can go back to killing each other.

Well that's why we keep interfering.

If we left them alone it would be a handful of fairly modern nations fighting it out to see who gets to control the region. By the time they were done America would have to hagle with a nation on par with the old Ottoman Empire that would be in control of most of the world's oil.

Same deal in Africa, but with uranium, gold, and diamonds to boot.

But they weren't invented there. He points out that Japan had more, and better guns than anywhere else in the world by the 1500's, but they abandoned them because they were relativly safe on a little island and there was a romanticisation of sword combat.

Ecology has quite a bit to do with Europe keeping its guns because if anyone in Europe tried to get rid of guns (and there was some social pressure to do so) then they'd have been conqured by a neighboring nation that had not gotten rid of guns.
Guns themselves weren't invented in Europe, but that is where they got their boost. The musket, rifle, blunderbuss, maxim gun, all of them were invented in Europe. Of course, this is more in the field of military technology, but there is a pattern here: China and Japan invented the basis of many things, but the Europeans improved it, and invented more based off those inventions.
The part geography played in it was minimal. China and Japan have only slight differences to Europe: they are both mixed bags.

Guns themselves weren't invented in Europe, but that is where they got their boost. The musket, rifle, blunderbuss, maxim gun, all of them were invented in Europe. Of course, this is more in the field of military technology, but there is a pattern here: China and Japan invented the basis of many things, but the Europeans improved it, and invented more based off those inventions.
The part geography played in it was minimal. China and Japan have only slight differences to Europe: they are both mixed bags.

Environment was the prime factor in Japan's use of the gun AND Europe's.

The introduction of firearms in warfare was seen as detrimental to those in power in both places. A certain kind of warrior was seen as the epitome of all things noble.

In Japan those warriors could afford to do away with guns once they consolidated power on Japan because there were no other competitors. When the Mongols invaded twice their fleets were destroyed by hurricanes (where they came up with the term kamikaze).

In Europe there was a similar resentment towards guns, and longbows, but there wasn't much that they could do about it. No matter how many lords are willing to outlaw guns, it only takes one to put them back on the field and start winning wars again. That made it impossible for Europeans to get rid of guns. That's where the environment comes in.

Environment was the prime factor in Japan's use of the gun AND Europe's.

The introduction of firearms in warfare was seen as detrimental to those in power in both places. A certain kind of warrior was seen as the epitome of all things noble.

In Japan those warriors could afford to do away with guns once they consolidated power on Japan because there were no other competitors. When the Mongols invaded twice their fleets were destroyed by hurricanes (where they came up with the term kamikaze).

In Europe there was a similar resentment towards guns, and longbows, but there wasn't much that they could do about it. No matter how many lords are willing to outlaw guns, it only takes one to put them back on the field and start winning wars again. That made it impossible for Europeans to get rid of guns. That's where the environment comes in.

Still, the dynamos were all competing against eachother. They were also separated by mountains. They had a chance to use guns as much as Europe, but didn't. Attitude mattered in that case. Even you concede that point.

Still, the dynamos were all competing against eachother. They were also separated by mountains. They had a chance to use guns as much as Europe, but didn't. Attitude mattered in that case. Even you concede that point.

But attitude wasn't the determining factor. The same attitude prevailed in both countries. If any European had been able to unify Europe under a single ruler then they'd probably have had a similar result as Japan.

After all, Europe wallowed in ignorance under the unifying and stultifying influence of the Roman Catholic Church.

But attitude wasn't the determining factor. The same attitude prevailed in both countries. If any European had been able to unify Europe under a single ruler then they'd probably have had a similar result as Japan.

After all, Europe wallowed in ignorance under the unifying and stultifying influence of the Roman Catholic Church.
But at the beginning of the Renaissaince, there was a new approach in the management of knowledge. By that time, leaders were taking an interest in knowledge themselves, and were liberalizing activities of their subjects. Otherwise, the Printing Press and the Protestant Reformation would've never occured. Nothing of the sort happened in Japan, which lingered under feudalism until well into the 19th century, stiffling innovation. That is what I mean by attitude.