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Jared Diamond’s True Prescience
In the past too many societies has collapsed. In the past decade or two, archeologists have shown us that there were some environmental problems behind many of these collapses. Jared Diamond says that there are some societies which have no sign of collapsing and they have been developing for thousands of years. (Such as Japan, Java, Tonga etc.) So there are other societies(which has already collapsed or close to collapse) at one point they are more fragile than the other societies. The question is how can we understand which ones are more fragile and what makes them more fragile.
In my opinion Diamond’s topic is how and what we can learn from the past so we can avoid collapsing in the way that so many societies have. It is a really complex question as we can see there are multiple factors behind this. He says if anyone tells you there is one fact behind this subject, you can tell that they are an idiot, which is so true; it is really idiotic to think about just one factor. There is a 5 point frame work as an answer which Diamond has come up with. I think these answers are more likely to answer the question of why those societies have collapsed.
He gives an example of Vikings going to Greenland (AD 984) and its collapse (1450) for looking for human impacts on environment, people destroy resources. This is his first point. Another one is the climate change, which can be a treat but it’s not fatal. Than relations with friendly societies comes next. It is possible that the society can collapse if a friendly support gets pulled away. Relations with hostile societies are really important; if you have bad relations it’s for sure that it will affect the society somehow. The last point is cultural, political and economical problems. These factors can make it more difficult for societies to solve their problems.
Today’s society is not different than the pasts. Today’s societies are facing the same problems (as an example Montana). The main problems are the same and Diamond’s 5 point frame fits them well. There are some differences which are dependable on time and zone facts and they just change the minor factors which cause the same problems.
Also there are two general factors that we can see during many of collapses. One is rapidity of collapse and the other one is these ones are mostly the fragile societies for subtle environmental reasons. But why the societies failed to succeed solving the problems? The answers are actually clear; Decisions made in those societies were good for the elites in the short-term but bad for the society in long-term (for example: Greenland Norse, Today’s America).Which can be called as conflict of interests. Also it was difficult to make food decisions when there is a conflict involving some values that are good in many circumstances but are poor in other circumstances. Diamond uses Australia being under the British identity for a long time and how it was hard to change after their commitment to British identity.
Finally he says there are 12 problems such as water, soil, toxics, population etc. And we need to solve all of them. If we even solve 11 of them and don’t solve just one of them, we are in trouble. I think with this Diamond shows us how important every each one of those problems are. In his opinion there is going to be a resolution within few decades for sure. There is going to be two forms: pleasant way, we realize and resolve these non-sustainable time fuses, unpleasant way, a war, disease or starvation might put an end to this. I believe that if we made the problems we can solve them, if we see it in time we can prevent it.
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