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Discussion and Debate
Discussion and Debate
Physical & Life Sciences
Is the earth doomed?
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<blockquote data-quote="Petros2015" data-source="post: 72464291" data-attributes="member: 388403"><p><em>In Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond found that a common factor was the myopic and self-serving decision-making of elites who believed they could insulate themselves from the consequences of societal disasters. As the elites reaped the rewards, the resulting damage to everyone else built up over time until calamity struck. The grim reality is that history has proven such cycles of extreme wealth inequality have only been broken by <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheidel-great-leveler-inequality-violence/517164/" target="_blank">catastrophes</a> –plagues, revolutions, massive wars, and collapsed states.</em></p><p></p><p>I read that book, it's excellent. At some point, the Easter Islander's chopped down the last tree. Cannibilism followed. "Your mother's flesh sticks in my teeth" was a common "your momma" insult. When you overharvest and destroy your environment, you destroy your society. Other factors - allies, trade resources, temporary conditions, lack of enemies, enable societies to flourish... for a while.</p><p></p><p>I don't think the Earth itself is doomed in the short term scale of 1 to 2000 years. But societies that are built on exploiting it are. At last count, that includes all of them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Petros2015, post: 72464291, member: 388403"] [I]In Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond found that a common factor was the myopic and self-serving decision-making of elites who believed they could insulate themselves from the consequences of societal disasters. As the elites reaped the rewards, the resulting damage to everyone else built up over time until calamity struck. The grim reality is that history has proven such cycles of extreme wealth inequality have only been broken by [URL='https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheidel-great-leveler-inequality-violence/517164/']catastrophes[/URL] –plagues, revolutions, massive wars, and collapsed states.[/I] I read that book, it's excellent. At some point, the Easter Islander's chopped down the last tree. Cannibilism followed. "Your mother's flesh sticks in my teeth" was a common "your momma" insult. When you overharvest and destroy your environment, you destroy your society. Other factors - allies, trade resources, temporary conditions, lack of enemies, enable societies to flourish... for a while. I don't think the Earth itself is doomed in the short term scale of 1 to 2000 years. But societies that are built on exploiting it are. At last count, that includes all of them. [/QUOTE]
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