Jared Diamond on why societies collapse

With reference to the Greenland Norse society:

1. People inadvertently destroying the resource base that they depend e.g. cutting all the trees down to make iron tools and causing soil erosion
2. Climate change
3. Relations with neighboring friendly societies e.g. between Iceland and Norway
4. Relations with hostile societies e.g. the Inuit
5. Political, economic, social and cultural aspects e.g. commitments to Christianity and building churches

South Western Montana:

1. Toxic problems from mining waste, weeds, desalination, forest fires
2. Getting warmer and drier, especially problem to irrigation agriculture
3. Transfer payments from out of payments e.g. social security
4. Terrorism and oil supplies
5. Long held values stunting development e.g. logging

And collapse is often a rapid:

1. Lowland Maya in Yucatan in 800 BC
   
2. Collapse of the Soviet Union
3. Easter Islanders
   
4. Growth of bacteria in a Petri dish where there is a mismatch between bacteria and nutrients

But how did these societies not see what was coming? (Tragedy of the commons?)

1. Conflict of interest between the considerations of the elites and the long term considerations of society e.g. Enron
   
2. Difficult to make good decisions within traditional value systems e.g. commitment to Christianity within Greenland Norse, commitment to British identity in Australia in backdrop growing Asian influence.

What is the most thing we need to do:

1. Realise the issue is complex, we need to do many things, and all of them are essential
2. Accept that our present course is unsustainable
3. We have a choice, this threat is not an asteroid, all the problems are tractable

Lots of bullet-point wisdom from Jared! For me the most interesting area here was how the disjoint between hierarchical interests can emerge, how it manifests itself and how it can be resolved.