Book: 20211206 to 20220115, "Collapse" by Jared Diamond

20211207 - Prologue : a tale of two farms

Two farms;Collapses, past and present;Vanished Edens?;A five-point framework;Businesses and the environment;The comparative method;Plan of the book

5-point framework: Environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners, and the society's response to its environmental problems.

Local collapse is not likely to happen today. But economy decline is a huge threat.

Can human survive from global warming? Can people keep international order? Can technology develop (such self-driving) fast enough to cover major threats?

part. 1. Modern Montana

20211211 - 1. Under Montana's big sky

Stan Falkow's story;Montana and me;Why begin with Montana?;Montana's economic history;Mining;Forests;Soil;Water;Native and non-native species;Differing visions;Attitudes towards regulation;Rick Laible's story;Chip Pigman's story;Tim Huls's story;John Cook's story;Montana, model of the world

We should not follow our heart and do what we love. Montana people love gorgeous environment and they love farming, but this is exactly the reason that they got worst living standards in US.

How to fix it? Compromize it a bit. Farming could be a hobby, or use farming as a feature to attract tourists.

Montana should not focus on mining, logging or agriculture. However, it's perfect for tourism and retirement living.

Its environment is fragile, which cannot support agriculture economy.

Perception and willingness to change is critical to save Montana.

part. 2. Past societies

20211215 - 2. Twilight at Easter

The quarry's mysteries;Easter's geography and history;People and food;Chiefs, clans, and commoners;Platforms and statues;Carving, transporting, erecting;The vanished forest;Consequences for society;Europeans and explanations;Why was Easter fragile?;Easter as metaphor

Easter Island has isolated fragil natural environment. People can only survive on it if use the natural resource wisely. However, those islanders don't have that knowledge. Possibily they resorted to religion, which failed them.

The earth is a huge edition of Easter Island. Will global warming decrease our population by 90%?

20211219 - 3. The last people alive : Pitcairn and Henderson Islands

Pitcairn before the Bounty;Three dissimilar islands;Trade;The movie's ending

Fragil society is not sustainable. All society need plan b, c, d, etc.

So, distributional manufacturing is critical to human.

Individuals are same. We need backup plans for almost everything. Or else, sooner or later, it's going to be really bad. Here, the point is that everyone needs backup plans, which means, if only a small percentage of people have backup plans, that's not going to work!

But, maintaining a backup plan could be expensive. Maybe, backup capability is the one we need.

In general, Australia is in good position: population is growing, and there is much more food to support much more people. It's still good time to invest in real estate.

20211221 - 4. The ancient ones : the Anasazi and their neighbors

Desert farmers;Tree rings;Agricultural strategies;Chaco's problems and packrats;Regional integration;Chaco's decline and end;Chaco's message

Is the whole world getting stronger or weaker? Global warming is getting worse, and population collapse is getting worse. Everything else seems OK.

But plan B of the Earth is necessary. Mars Colony is needed, although not urgent.

As of individual, slow and steady is better than growing as fast as we can. We need to prepare for the bad things to happen when we are lucky at the moment.

20211222 - 5. The Maya collapses

Mysteries of lost cities;The Maya environment;Maya agriculture;Maya history;Copán;Complexities of collapses;Wars and droughts;Collapse in the southern lowlands;The Maya message

Limited resource vs infinite population growth. This means that collapse is inevitable. Climate change accelerated this process, and human's stupidity wasted too much resource on meaningless stuff, such as temples and pyramids.

Currently there is enough resource to support the whole world. What if extreme weather drastically reduced the food supply? Developing countries would endure population reduction. Will China and Russia become real threat to US and Europe?

20211225 - 6. The Viking prelude and fugues

Experiments in the Atlantic;The Viking explosion;Autocatalysis;Viking agriculture;Iron;Viking chiefs;Viking religion;Orkneys, Shetlands, Faeroes;Iceland's environment;Iceland's history;Iceland in context;Vinland

Vikings are like ancient Mongols. They don't have enough natural resources to support themselves when the population grow up, so they choose to rob other area by ship (instead of horses).

Why the results are so different?

I believe it's because of the difference in transportation. Boats can carry a lot of goods over thousands of kilometers distance, but horses cannot do that.

20211226 - 7. Norse Greenland's flowering

Europe's outpost;Greenland's climate today;Climate in the past;Native plants and animals;Norse settlement;Farming;Hunting and fishing;An integrated economy;Society;Trade with Europe;Self-image

The most strange thing is Greenlanders's rejection of fish. Jared Diamond believes that fish was taboo in Greenland. That's really hard to imagine, and hard to believe that no writing records about this taboo.  When someone visited Norway, would they be surprised that all people eat fish there?! This is a huge mistery to me!

Life was really, really hard there. I was surprised that they could stay there for so many centries.

Meme blind Greelanders' eyes. They could not use the First Principle to analyze problems, which led to the collapse of their society. 

20211229 - 8. Norse Greenland's end

Introduction to the end;Deforestation;Soil and turf damage;The Inuit's predecessors;Inuit subsistence;Inuit/Norse relations;The end;Ultimate causes of the end

The people lived in Greenland long time ago were horrible. Is it because of the scarce resource? Maybe this is the reason that the GOD in the Old Testament is so cruel. Maybe this is the reason that ancient Chinese people call the people in nearby countries "barbarian".

The most important factor is this: are you willing to open your mind, to learn and to change yourself? Can we get everyone to do their best for the long term benefit of the whole group?

How to tell that why brings in long term benefit for the whole group? The first principle and the Freedom of Public Opinion.

Rich people and rich countries will also die out or collapse if the poor ones cannot survive, in the world today.

Free market can quickly tells us what goods are in serious shortage. This helps human to quickly respond to potential threat, and increase our survive probability.

20220102 - 9. Opposite paths to success

Bottom up, top down;New Guinea highlands;Tikopia;Tokugawa problems;Tokugawa solutions;Why Japan succeeded;Other successes

It seems that rainfall is the key, and the next important factor is temperature. Enough rainfall offers strong natural recover capability. If plants grow quickly, animals can slow recover quickly. So Iceland is not good at all as Doomsday sanctuary. Australia and New Zealand are much better.

Food supply is the critical indicator. Australia and New Zealand export most of their agriculture production to other countries, so they are at advantanged position during Doomsday. So, in Australia, Sydney is much better than other cities, just next to Darwin.

How to adapt to the changes of the external environment is still crucial.

part. 3. Modern societies

20220104 - 10. Malthus in Africa : Rwanda's genocide

A dilemma;Events in Rwanda;More than ethnic hatred;Buildup in Kanama;Explosion in Kanama;Why it happened

Food shortage is the root cause of Rwanda's tragedy. Why "Malthusian crisis" rarely happened to other area?

Rwanda is a inland country, and the altitude is between 1500 meter to 2500 meter. It's not easy for people to migrate to other areas.

20220106 - 11. One island, two peoples, two histories : the Dominican Republic and Haiti

Differences;Histories;Causes of divergence;Dominican environmental impacts;Balaguer;The Dominican environment today;The future

Haitian's situation can be traced back to their self-identity and their perception of the world. I don't see how it can own a brighter future, but no doubt many of them can emigrate to other countries and get better lives.

To some extent, solar panel and battery can replace fuel and even forest. They give us energy, and energy means synthetic fertilizer and even water. No doubt in the near future, we can even get wood and food directly from carbon dioxide and H2O with the help of energy. Or else we cannot generate food on Mars, which means we cannot colonize Mars.

What will happen after that?

If energy and food is free, can we solve the problem of Haiti? The population will keep growing. 3% per year means double every 23 years. Almost infinite energy and food cannot guarantee the better future of Haiti.

20220108 - 12. China, lurching giant

China's significance;Background;Air, water, soil;Habitat, species, megaprojects;Consequences;Connections;The future

China can build wealth fast. But it may also collapse quickly.

Based on its size, no matter which way it goes, it will bring huge impact to the world.

Technically, it should go fast at the beginning. After accumulating decent wealth, it should slow down. But that's not what they want to do.

The good thing is, they are planting many trees. The bad things is, they want to make food self-sufficient. But there are only that much land. Is that the reason that they start to expand? If it is, then it's really bad news to the world.

20220109 - 13. "Mining" Australia

Australia's significance;Soils;Water;Distance;Early history;Imported values;Trade and immigration;Land degradation;Other environmental problems;Signs of hope and change

Modern agriculture turns plants into machines. Can this last forever?

The quality of the soil in Australia is poor, but immense amount of agricultural products are exported every year, for many years. That's not sustainable.

Australia should cut 90% of food production and most of the cotton and wool production. Same as Montana, home stay is a much better business than farming.

For Doomsday, New Zealand is a much better choice, as it's close to volcanoes, has enough iron and coal mining.

part. 4. Practical lessons

20220110 - 14. Why do some societies make disastrous decisions?

Road map for success;Failure to anticipate;Failure to perceive;Rational bad behavior;Disastrous values;Other irrational failures;Unsuccessful solutions;Signs of hope

Failure to anticipate a problem;

Failure to perceive it once it has arisen;

Failure to atempt to solve it after it has been perceived;

Failure to succeed in attempts to solve it;

Are they part of "Black Swan"? What are the similar disasters an individual may get?

Prepare for them, and adjust our attitude. Setting up correct perception is the best preparation.

I am surprised that Jared Diamond supports the mandated Family Planning in China. I believe that the purpose of  such national policy is good, but is there any better method? The real reason makes the policy work is the improving life standards, just like other similar asia countries such as Singapore, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

20220112 - 15. Big businesses and the environment : different conditions, different outcomes

Resource extraction;Two oil fields;Oil company motives;Hardrock mining operations;Mining company motives;Differences among mining companies;The logging industry;Forest Stewardship Council;The seafood industry;Businesses and the public

FSC certified forest only counts around 5% of all forest. As it was founded 28 years ago, there is long way to go.

Can FSC handle the loggers in the Third World? I am optimistic.

But I am pessimistic about MSC: the NGO for fishery. There are some countries, both the government and the people, believe the world is a zero-sum game. Tragedy of the commons applies to the fishery in the open sea.

The good news is that we may not need to worry too much about cruid oil, coal and natural gas digging. Sustainable energy is growing quickly, and hopefully can take more than 50% of market in 20 years.

Gold mining is also dying (in 20 years, hopefully), but other metal mining is still critical to economy. Hopefully people can set up some NGO similar to FSC to help reducing pollution from those metal mining.

Public is the ultimate force to protect environment, and the public is the one who is going to bear the cost. No doubt about this.

20220115 - 16. The world as a polder : what does it all mean to us today?

Introduction;The most serious problems;If we don't solve them...;Life in Los Angeles;One-liner objections;The past and the present;Reasons for hope.

Am I optimistic or pessimistic? Can human solve Prisoner's dilemma and Tragedy of the Commons?

We are transforming to sustainable energy, and that may complete in 30 years. If no CO2 will be emitted after that, and we got almost infinite energy, then we would solved one of the largest threat: global warming and energy competition. That is too late to stop Global Warming, and it would lead to huge loss to many people, but it's not likely to cause large scale social collapse.

Another one is population. Almost all population in the First World countries are reducing, and many Second World and Third World countries are catching up. Yes, it would cause big trouble to economy, but it's good to environment.

The third factor is about the education system. No matter which country we are in, more and more people get more opportunities of better education.

Earth is big. It's big enough to tolerate serious exploit for long time. From the environment point of view, I am optimistic.

Then how about AI?

20220115 - 17. Angkor's Rise and Fall

Questions about Angkor;Angkor's environment;Angkor's rise;The great city;Magnificent engineering;Ankor's decline

There are so many questions from Jared Diamond. For me, the question is, how the king communicate with his subordinates?

In history, 40 years drought come to some area from time to time. Last time Australia got 13 years drought, that's around 110 years ago. Can Australia go through another 13 years drought, or worse, 20 years drought?

Thanks for the advanced transportation vehicles. Continuous long drought doesn't hit many countries at the same time. Maybe we don't need to worry about this too much.

For modern societies, the challenge is different: extreme weather caused by global warming.

There is always some trouble waiting for us.