Posted on 12/31/2004 10:17:55 PM PST by neverdem
Who do they think supplies the wild animals?
How did we get on the subject of divorce?
Nah, the west coast of the U.S. is mostly rocky except for the lower coastline.
Native peoples can live off the land and aren't tied down by the conveniences we have. We can be too smugly superior about the conveniences and the benefit of our high technology civilization. What would we do if everything we depended on broke down without warning? New Guineans can go to the jungle to get their food. But if foodstuffs run out in our urban supermarket centers, what's the alternative of Western man? Its a good question.
By mounting accelerometers on existing meteorological buoys linked to satellites the detection would be greatly enhanced.
Looting.
Yep. I can see a wave of home invasion robberies in store. And when all the food's gone, people will turn to cannabalism. <sarcasm
Jared Diamond is a leftist and full of crap.
"Gun Germs, and Steel has interesting parts but the whole is standard left wing academic claptrap. Mr. Diamond attempts to claim the West dominates the world due to its happenstance of geography, domesticatable animals, indigenous plants, etc. He ignores culture and religion."
And genes. But of course, that was why he wrote the book.
And the odds of that happening...?
Pretty much zero. Every system has a backup system actually two or three systems, while it might be annoying to switch it would certainly be possible.
If one fails you have the others for back up and can continue to function more or less normally.
We have had numerous system failures and the backup systems always swing right into place.
In your assumption that "New Guineans can go to the jungle to get their food" you do not take into consideration that this is their only system and if it fails or if it fails at the wrong time of the year you starve.
That is why less developed societies always have a higher death toll during and after a tragedy.
"lambasting the industrial nations for robbing resources from the third world, while preserving their own."
Do they rob the third world or pay the going market price for those resources?
I don't either. I only read reviews of the author's previous book, "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies", so I was surprised to find him advocating the usual leftist BS. I only enjoyed the history part, not the claptrap advocacy.
I usually enjoy academics' historical and scientific exposition - which I presume they have expertise to enlighten us about. At the same time, I could care less about their politics and their views here are no more sound and indeed should not carry special weight just because they have a Ph.D tag at the end of their name.
Private land ownership is a prime example of resource management and many of the cultures that died off had no private land owned and operated by the people. The lands were owned and operated by the elite kings who indeed shield themselves from problems that private land owners can identify and correct.
True that America could potentially squander its resources but who makes the best decisions regarding land management?
Environmentalists? Big Corporations? Bureaucrats? Farmers?
With huges tracts of once productive farm land land being eaten up by urban sprawl we could indeed hinder our ability to produce the food we need to survive. With agricultural imports reaching record levels can we really afford to depend on the politics of other nations to provide the food we need to remain secure in America?
No!
I can see the philosophy of the authors words. But who is best equipped to manage our land and resources? Not the UN. Not environmentalists. Not government. Only the people who own the land and depend on the land for their livelyhood can make the ultimate decisions. IMHO
Let's just assume that Diamond is correct in his thesis. Americans have gone to enormous lengths to protect and preserve the environment. There is more forest now (using Diamond's own standard) than there was in 1492. Our poor are prosperous. Diamond seems to define the Mayan kings as the ancient equivalents to the academics and the left - aloof, isolated, trapped in their ideological realm. If we get into a trading pissing match with the EU, we can go to any number of a dozen other partners around the world. Climate change in a place the size of North America won't make much difference - if the tomatoes crap out in Florida, some guy in Fresno will have some for you in 60 to 90 days. Actually, by Diamond's assessment, the United States is in great shape... and the other posters are right about him leaving out culture as an influence. Sometimes cultures just lose the will to live, as the Romans did mocking their old values until everyone had forgotten what they were, or the sad way the Athabascans living around me wear "Native pride" hats listening to Tupac on portable CD players, riding snowmachines and watching basketball on satellite TV, with only a whisper of precontact culture by drying meat or keeping a cabin down the river. Culture counts for a lot - probably more than Diamond gives it credit.
We could go back to that lifestyle if 90 percent of us were gone. Any volunteers? I didn't think so.
Our modern, high-tech civilization keeps billions alive. Unless we hope for most of us to die, we have to keep it going. With technology, more billions could yet exist. We should strive, as a civilization, to make life cleaner, easier, and more fulfilling (Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness). Unless we learn how to become immortal, we need to produce smart healthy children, and increase our numbers. I can only see that happening if we get off the Earth into space.
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