Reddit reviews Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

There are a lot collapsed societies that beg to differ. This is on my reading list and has great/horrifying examples of civilizations going down in flames.

Jared Diamond - Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel

Both are great. Not at all boring. Both are favorites of mine.

Also, Collapse and Guns, Gems and Steel by Jared Diamond

Well, history can't be used to predict the future but all civilizations change in form eventually (although not all necessarily "collapse" ie most of the European colonial powers never collapsed in the sense that Rome did.)

Collapse is absolutely possible and the factors that cause collapse are rarely predictable to those living through them. The up side to this is a collapse does not necessitate catastrophe. You may want to explore the collapse of the Soviet Union for some insight into how the collapse of the only other post-war superpower unfolded. I can recommend some books on this if you're interested.

While I haven't read this book in particular, Jared Diamond (author of Guns. Germs, and Steel which was fantastic) wrote a book a few years ago called Collapse which deals with this subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/0670033375

The arctic treeline is due to lack of moisture and permafrost, which prevent trees from growing.

Iceland's lack of trees is due to overexploitation centuries ago. There's a great chapter on the subject in Jared Diamond's Collapse

"What were the Easter Islanders thinking when they chopped down the last tree on their island?"

However it may sound, he's right. Population growth is by and large the cause of a lot of the problems we have globally right now. Food production isn't growing at the same rate as population. Energy sources aren't being uncovered or brought into production at the same rate as population growth. Potable freshwater is in short supply compared to population. One of the only reasons that the developed world is able to maintain the standard of living is that population growth not from immigration is flat or nearly so. With the developing world beginning to develop a middle class with growing tastes, more of the same is what we're in for.

As far as Australia in particular, I suggest you read Collapse by Jared Diamond. He discusses the issues with water usage and sustainable population levels there in very good detail. He also has some videos online:

At the Long Now Foundation in San Fran, shortly after the release of Collapse

At TED, back in 2003

We keep going the way we are, we're fucked. Then again I'm a hypocrite because I know I'm not doing much to change my draw on resources.

Jared Diamond did a case study on Easter Island in Collapse: How societies choose to succeed or fail. He also studied the Vikings in Iceland, the Mayans and Aztecs, and Adobe cliff dwellers.

His conclusion was that societies will consume the entire resources of an area. Once they reach a crisis point, the leaders blame their ecological calamities on the masses not being faithful enough to their gods and it just goes downhill into sectarian violence over the remaining resources. Fun future, huh?

This book by Jared Diamond has an in depth look at why Haiti failed in comparison to the Dominican Republic. http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/0670033375

"Collapse" by Jared Diamond.

http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/0670033375

Well, at least I get to see a lot of countries and history. :/

Collapse has a few chapters devoted to this topic. Very interesting read.

You might be interested in Jared Diamond's Collapse, which talks a lot about remote island communities, how they formed, lived, and frequently failed.

Yes, Humans have. Many times.

Source: Collapse

Here's part of the blurb from Amazon:

As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. Moving from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe. Environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of these societies, but other societies found solutions and persisted. Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society’s apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana.

Well, that's one way to put it.

Another way to put it is that someone has to fund the scientific research to tell us how to keep our civilization from collapsing, and since there is no private market demand for that service it is in the public interest for tax dollars to fund that research. Just like there is no private market demand for orphanages, so your tax dollars are needed to pay for them.

Of course taxes are sometimes needed to pay for goods and services even when there is demand but where private markets cannot serve that demand efficiently. These are known formally as public goods, and you can learn about them here:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicGoods.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

And if you think sustainability is a dumb idea because civilizations have never collapsed before, you have some more learning to do. You can start by reading this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/0670033375