5 ms·

The Easter Island story told by Jared Diamond in Collapse is arguably a myth. Do you have any other examples? An alternate view of Easter Island includes these

• mikeash 12y ago
  The question of what the trees were used for and how the statues were moved, while interesting in general, isn't relevant here. When deciding whether Easter Island represents a collapse due to resource exhaustion, the relevant questions are whether the trees were cut down at all (seems to be no dispute there), whether this represents general ecological destruction (in dispute, it seems), whether the population declined precipitously (no dispute here either), and finally whether that decline was caused by the ecological destruction. Researching the question a bit (and not using Diamond as a reference, at least not directly or intentionally) I can't see any support for the idea that the island was doing fine until outsiders bought war, disease, and slavery. As far as I can see, the war, disease, and slavery period followed European contact, but the initial population decline from a peak of around 15,000 down to 2-3,000 happened before European contact. In the absence of external pressures, that seems to leave only resource depletion as the possible cause. Even if it was external, though, why is "land which isn't being overrun by invaders" different from any other resource? As for other examples, Cahokia and the Anasazi are two possible examples in North America. The Norse settlement in Greenland is a more likely but smaller example. The collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization is another possible example. Malden and Pitcairn are two more potential Pacific island examples, both supporting human settlement for centuries, but eventually containing no people by the time of European discovery. Finally, there's good evidence for a sharp genetic bottleneck in the human population deep in pre-history, in which the world population was reduced to 10,000 or less. The cause isn't too clear, but whether it was a volcano, gradual climate change, or something else, it seems that some sort of resource limitation has to be at work. None of these are completely clear-cut, but we can't really expect them to be. A collapsed civilization isn't necessarily going to leave a lot of records. Even if some of these were due to something else, it doesn't seem likely that they all were.
  • glenra 12y ago
    > whether the population declined precipitously (no dispute here either) No, that is definitely one of the items under dispute. Lipo claims the population never reached that high a peak and did not substantially decline until after outsiders came. > I can't see any support for the idea that the island was doing fine until outsiders bought war, disease, and slavery. As far as I can see, the war, disease, and slavery period followed European contact, but the initial population decline from a peak of around 15,000 down to 2-3,000 happened before European contact. Lipo says that the claim that the population followed that sort of trajectory was essentially an early rough guess not based on actual data. A popular one, so you might find it in multiple sources, but a guess nonetheless. In response, quoting from that last link I gave before: > Finally, Diamond ignores field research reporting dated domestic habitation sites (see Hunt and Lipo 2009 for discussion). When the habitations are plotted in fifty-year intervals, the number of those occupied clearly shows that the first and only sustained decline, as a relative measure of the population, began only in the first interval following European contact. Before contact the data show a population that is growing and stabilizing, as reflected in their habitations across the landscape. There is no evidence of population decline, let alone “collapse” until after European contact. Indeed, there is direct, abundant evidence that population numbers grew, stabilized, and then fell only after European contact beginning in 1722. (source: http://www.evobeach.com/2011/10/diamond-attempts-to-defend-myths-of.html http://www.evobeach.com/2011/10/diamond-attempts-to-defend-m... ) > Even if it was external, though, why is "land which isn't being overrun by invaders" different from any other resource? That story would lead to a very different conclusion, especially if you want to turn the story into an analogy for how we should treat the earth as a whole. Should we worry more about building a Space Defense network to protect us from aliens and not so much about preserving forests? :-)
    • mikeash 12y ago
      You misunderstand my "un-invaded land as a resource" point. I'm just pointing out that un-invaded land is a resource, and that these people weren't able to cope with the loss of that resource. So, is there something about un-invaded land that makes it different from other resources, such that humans can cope with losing others but not that one? If so, what makes it different? If not, then it shows that resource exhaustion can kill civilizations. If un-invaded land is unique somehow, then obviously we're not under threat in that respect. But if it's not, then it demonstrates that this class of problem exists, and shows that we need to take steps to ensure we don't run out of the resources we do have looming problems with.