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Which ones? I’ve read this argument for Easter Island most often but that has been questioned many times: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rethinking

by api 4y ago

Which ones? I’ve read this argument for Easter Island most often but that has been questioned many times: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rethinking-easter-islands-historic-collapse/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rethinking-easter... One of the biggest fallacies in human thinking about complex things like civilization is the tendency to look for one cause for any one effect. In reality almost anything that happens in a civilization will have many causes, or even many layers of them. This makes it hard to reduce things like civilization collapse to cartoon morality tales or just so stories but it also makes it hard to reason about them generally. We seem to be bad at judging when things are actually in collapse. Case in point, I sometimes feel contrarian for thinking that the US is not in decline. Both the far right and far left push this for obvious reasons but I see a lot of counterarguments.

ben_w 4y ago
Indeed. Easter Island is the most iconic, though it's also harder to be sure, and you are correct both to say that this is disputed and to later say that a common cognitive failure is to try to attribute everything to a single cause. Based on what's in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse, I think many local collapses have this as a contributing factor. The Khmer Empire (of Angor Wat fame) likely collapsed for many reasons, and one of the possible contributors was ecological. As it's quite a long article, I'll quote: """ Periods of drought led to decreases in agricultural productivity, and violent floods due to monsoons damaged the infrastructure during this vulnerable time.[40] To adapt to the growing population, trees were cut down from the Kulen hills and cleared out for more rice fields. That created rain runoff carrying sediment to the canal network. Any damage to the water system would have enormous consequences.[42]""" - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Empire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Empire IMO, the British political responses to the potato famine in Ireland and the many different famines in India are major contributors to their respective independence movements, and hence the fall of the British empire. Post-Empire, Zimbabwe was seen as the breadbasket of (southern) Africa, but the political choices of Mugabe severely reduced its productivity, and are probably a major contributor to the period of hyperinflation. Regional issues within nations, the Dust Bowl era of the USA was the intersection of natural drought with the failure of the farmers to adapt to dry farming; if the affected regions had been independent nations rather than states of the USA, I think that would have counted as a collapse. > We seem to be bad at judging when things are actually in collapse. Yes, absolutely. Even after the event — From what I've read, the Romans didn't think of themselves as collapsed even when (and thanks to the way it happened, where) we would say that it had; and I still witness British people speaking as though the UK is still nearly the equal of the USA, that "the commonwealth" is a major player, and so on.
- api 4y ago
  I'd certainly believe that ecological stress could be a contributing factor. Perhaps civilizations that are already weak for other reasons like corruption, demographics, etc. are unable to innovate, adapt, substitute resources, or otherwise adjust when confronted by ecological stress. There's a thesis on the collapse of Rome that argues that a volcanic eruption helped tip it over: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/science/rome-caesar-volcano.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/science/rome-caesar-volca... Not self-inflicted, but still ecological. But Rome was already weak when it occurred.

by api 4y ago

ben_w 4y ago

Indeed. Easter Island is the most iconic, though it's also harder to be sure, and you are correct both to say that this is disputed and to later say that a common cognitive failure is to try to attribute everything to a single cause. Based on what's in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse, I think many local collapses have this as a contributing factor. The Khmer Empire (of Angor Wat fame) likely collapsed for many reasons, and one of the possible contributors was ecological. As it's quite a long article, I'll quote: """ Periods of drought led to decreases in agricultural productivity, and violent floods due to monsoons damaged the infrastructure during this vulnerable time.[40] To adapt to the growing population, trees were cut down from the Kulen hills and cleared out for more rice fields. That created rain runoff carrying sediment to the canal network. Any damage to the water system would have enormous consequences.[42]""" - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Empire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Empire IMO, the British political responses to the potato famine in Ireland and the many different famines in India are major contributors to their respective independence movements, and hence the fall of the British empire. Post-Empire, Zimbabwe was seen as the breadbasket of (southern) Africa, but the political choices of Mugabe severely reduced its productivity, and are probably a major contributor to the period of hyperinflation. Regional issues within nations, the Dust Bowl era of the USA was the intersection of natural drought with the failure of the farmers to adapt to dry farming; if the affected regions had been independent nations rather than states of the USA, I think that would have counted as a collapse. > We seem to be bad at judging when things are actually in collapse. Yes, absolutely. Even after the event — From what I've read, the Romans didn't think of themselves as collapsed even when (and thanks to the way it happened, where) we would say that it had; and I still witness British people speaking as though the UK is still nearly the equal of the USA, that "the commonwealth" is a major player, and so on.

api 4y ago
I'd certainly believe that ecological stress could be a contributing factor. Perhaps civilizations that are already weak for other reasons like corruption, demographics, etc. are unable to innovate, adapt, substitute resources, or otherwise adjust when confronted by ecological stress. There's a thesis on the collapse of Rome that argues that a volcanic eruption helped tip it over: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/science/rome-caesar-volcano.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/science/rome-caesar-volca... Not self-inflicted, but still ecological. But Rome was already weak when it occurred.