In the Pursuit of Extra Credit

Like most college students I jump at every opportunity to boost my grade, especially when they require little more than me to spend about an hour and a half listening to some dude talk about his books. Sometimes these extra-credit lectures can actually be more interesting than my regular programing and hell, we can all use the enrichment.

Tonight, by the recommendation of a Professor (with some bous encentives) I attened a lecture by Jared Diamond. It was part of USF's on-going University Lecture Series, and with the title "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed", it sounded interesting enough. Anyway, all I can say is WOW. I need to get a hold of his books now. It was a privillage to be in this mans pressence.

The lecture was based off his book by the same name and heres what I got:

5-point checklist of problems that face societies (developed by Dr. Diamond in his research)
1. Human impacts on the environment - depeltion of rescources, air and water polution etc.
2. Climate change - natural flucuation of temperatures and weather paterns
3. Enemies - external conflicts
4. Trade partners - other societies with which they can trade goods for their survival
5. Ability to recognise problems

He argues that all of these can and will lead to the sucess or failure of a society

He also offers a "Road Map of Failed Decision Making", essentially why these problems aren't solved:
1. Inexperienced with the problem - ex. Global warming: in the 70's no one knew what global warming was, it was inconcievable that our emmissions would have adverse effects on the environment
2. Recognition of the problem- ex. Global warming: If temperatures rose more rapidly, for example by 1 degree each year, global warming would have been recognised sooner. However, temperatures have fluctuated warmer and cooler an not until recently have we noticed that over all things are getting hotter.
3. No attempt to solve the problem (simply put I think?)

Dr. Diamond offers that the reason why problems are sometimes over-looked or unreognised is becuase the Elites of a society are insulated from the problems and sometimes benefit from them. He offers an example of gated-communities in Los Angels, where the rich live in their own world, away from the poor, away from crime, they drink bottled water and send their kids to private school. They rarely come in contact with the outside world and therefore do not recognise that anything is truely wrong.

Environmental problems CANNOT be over looked he argues. Failure to recognise environmental problems, and react to them almost always leads to collapse.

Dr. Dimond also notes that the inabilty of a society to reasses and adapt their core-values often leads to collapse. The two most problematic Core-Values for the U.S. are:
1. Consumerism - our wasteful obession with things
2. Isolationalism - thinking that the problems are "out-there" and not ours to worry about. (In the 80's Regan officals listed Somalia, Afgahnistan and Iraq as countries that the U.S. would have little to know ties with, with the exception of oil in Iraq. Within the last 15 years we have engaged militarily within each of these countries.)

Linking the past and the present can be difficult, explains Dr. Diamond, because there are more people in the world with more destructive technologies and globalization has made it hard for societies to exisit seperatly from each other. Even though these hurtles exist Dr. Diamond suggest that we can learn from past societes and those among us currently to find solutions to problems that we may soon be facing.

And in case you all were wondering, Dr. Diamond believes that within the next 50 years ALL of societies problems will have to be dealt with and the postivie or negative results will be ours to deal with.

Great lecture. Great man. Great ideas. If you ahve the opportunity to listen to him speak or read one of his books, DO IT!