collapse continued

Humans do play a role in the collapse of their societies, but the stage is clearly set by geography, climate, weather, resources, and other factors. These factors determine how likely it is humans will be able to establish a settlement and maintain the viability of that settlement.

What seems to be happening then is a succession of boom and bust cycles, where humans become very successful and then overrun the resources, resulting a dramatic rollback, possibly followed by a new cycle. Some environments do not sustain many cycles, but others are very resilient. Many also offer alternative options. That was the case for Iceland for example. When one resource was destroyed, another (fish) was present and ready to be taken advantage of. The same cannot be said for people living on remote islands like Easter, where few alternatives did exist.

But it seems quite clear that humans behave very much like any other species and that they go on exploiting and mining and overusing their resources right up until disaster hits. It is like driving into a wall at 100 mph without ever hitting the brake or attempting to swerve. To the contrary, it seems that species accelerate when the wall is near, and thereby speed up disaster. And that is a point Diamond makes very well.

To be continued