Book of the Month April May 08 - 'Collapse' by Jared Diamond (Diamond Video Posted 26 April)

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This is the hands-free version of "Collapse" - about 80 minutes
(with a shorter video on the same link)

Jared Diamond talks about the writing of "Collapse" - LINK
Jared Diamond talks about the writing of "Collapse" - LINK

Butte, Montana

Plum Creek after clear felling.

The book is going well. I'm going to get a good few pages behind me tonight so I'll have lots to chat about tomorrow when the discussion proper begins.

I'm using my Bank of England magnetic bookmarker to mark my page. It's a wonderful invention!

I'm getting into it too, Ard Taoiseach, and its surprising how (although on a much smaller scale) a lot of Montana's issues are our issues too.

cactus flower wrote:

I'm getting into it too, Ard Taoiseach, and its surprising how (although on a much smaller scale) a lot of Montana's issues are our issues too.

Yeah, I'm reminded of some parts of Connamara where the local trades of fishery, weaving, tuf-cutting and some shepherding has been replaced with S. 23 holiday homes, property developers buying there own slice of heritage and surfing taking over from fishery. Somewhere like Galway could be our very own Montana in that it's a large state with relatively sparse population, lower than national average income, peripheral status and has had a developmental cycle similar to Montana.

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

I'm getting into it too, Ard Taoiseach, and its surprising how (although on a much smaller scale) a lot of Montana's issues are our issues too.

Yeah, I'm reminded of some parts of Connamara where the local trades of fishery, weaving, tuf-cutting and some shepherding has been replaced with S. 23 holiday homes, property developers buying there own slice of heritage and surfing taking over from fishery. Somewhere like Galway could be our very own Montana in that it's a large state with relatively sparse population, lower than national average income, peripheral status and has had a developmental cycle similar to Montana.

And I am thinking about the large tailings pond containing heavy metals that, in the event of structural failure, would pour into the River Nore. And our Sitka spruce, clear felled forestry plantations.

cactus flower wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

I'm getting into it too, Ard Taoiseach, and its surprising how (although on a much smaller scale) a lot of Montana's issues are our issues too.

Yeah, I'm reminded of some parts of Connamara where the local trades of fishery, weaving, tuf-cutting and some shepherding has been replaced with S. 23 holiday homes, property developers buying there own slice of heritage and surfing taking over from fishery. Somewhere like Galway could be our very own Montana in that it's a large state with relatively sparse population, lower than national average income, peripheral status and has had a developmental cycle similar to Montana.

And I am thinking about the large tailings pond containing heavy metals that, in the event of structural failure, would pour into the River Nore. And our Sitka spruce, clear felled forestry plantations.

Well, there are forestry plantations out in Galway. I remember going down the West about 5 years ago on a Summer holiday and the amount of notices and news about afforestation grants was tremendous.

Like yourself, I like the way that Jared Diamond sticks up for the Case Study as a scientific method. Isolating things in a laboratory is really not possible in the study of society.
If we were to let the lab assistants have their way, the human species would give up all efforts at learning from experience.

cactus flower wrote:

Like yourself, I like the way that Jared Diamond sticks up for the Case Study as a scientific method. Isolating things in a laboratory is really not possible in the study of society.

The CIA might have done something like that to Chile, I learned this weekend.

cactus flower wrote:

Like yourself, I like the way that Jared Diamond sticks up for the Case Study as a scientific method. Isolating things in a laboratory is really not possible in the study of society.
If we were to let the lab assistants have their way, the human species would give up all efforts at learning from experience.

Yeah, one cannot capture the cornucopia and cosmopolitan confusion which is common life in a community in a contained laboratory.

Jared Diamond is perfectly correct in his approach, though the variables when one considers the full quantum of human life is staggering. To conflate two current themes, how can one be sure of one's conclusions when one waft of a butterfly's wings can de-rail all of your carefullly constructed conclusion?

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Like yourself, I like the way that Jared Diamond sticks up for the Case Study as a scientific method. Isolating things in a laboratory is really not possible in the study of society.
If we were to let the lab assistants have their way, the human species would give up all efforts at learning from experience.

Yeah, one cannot capture the cornucopia and cosmopolitan confusion which is common life in a community in a contained laboratory.

Jared Diamond is perfectly correct in his approach, though the variables when one considers the full quantum of human life is staggering. To conflate two current themes, how can one be sure of one's conclusions when one waft of a butterfly's wings can de-rail all of your carefullly constructed conclusion?

I think that he considers that he overcomes this problem by gathering substantial sets of case studies that meet strict criteria in terms of the critical factors he is assessing - environmental pressures, hostile neighbours, friendly trading partners, climate change andhuman response to environmental pressure - and that his comparisons are thus robust.

cactus flower wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Like yourself, I like the way that Jared Diamond sticks up for the Case Study as a scientific method. Isolating things in a laboratory is really not possible in the study of society.
If we were to let the lab assistants have their way, the human species would give up all efforts at learning from experience.

Yeah, one cannot capture the cornucopia and cosmopolitan confusion which is common life in a community in a contained laboratory.

Jared Diamond is perfectly correct in his approach, though the variables when one considers the full quantum of human life is staggering. To conflate two current themes, how can one be sure of one's conclusions when one waft of a butterfly's wings can de-rail all of your carefullly constructed conclusion?

I think that he considers that he overcomes this problem by gathering substantial sets of case studies that meet strict criteria in terms of the critical factors he is assessing - environmental pressures, hostile neighbours, friendly trading partners, climate change andhuman response to environmental pressure - and that his comparisons are thus robust.

Indeed, his comparisons are between countries and civilisations which are similar in all but one detail. That is a robust and a rigorous method to come to a credible conclusion at the end of the comparative effort.

Well, did anybody read it?

Well - it looks like I might get an early night.

Well, I am going to get started. I have read the introduction to Collapse, and the sections on Montana and Easter Island. Montana seemed a bit of a cop out at first, as it has not collapsed, nor is it the kind of advanced and complex society that he looked at elsewhere in the book.
But the plus is there is a lot that is directly comparable to Ireland.

I'm afraid I'm still on the mining chapter re. Montana. I'm enjoying it though as you say it hasn't collapsed.

How is it comparable to Ireland? The growth is stronger here so we mightn't starve as quickly as they might. Their climate is very different overall I'd say.

Auditor #9 wrote:

I'm afraid I'm still on the mining chapter re. Montana. I'm enjoying it though as you say it hasn't collapsed.

How is it comparable to Ireland? The growth is stronger here so we mightn't starve as quickly as they might. Their climate is very different overall I'd say.

Yes, I thought Montana was not such a good example to look at overall, and that the main reason he put it in was not because it fitted the thesis but because he knows it extremely well.

Well that's no harm - think global act local and all. I liked the statistics - Montana 3rd biggest state and 6th least populated....

If you were going to try to define Montana you would say probably that it is a worked-out mining area, with the typical economic shrinkage that happens in any worked out mining area - say South Wales, or the Belgian coal fields, and that the agriculture has always been marginal.
Logging has been on a quarrying basis rather than forest management.