This week we finished Jared Diamond's COLLAPSE.
This section is open for your template posts and responses.
Respond to one of the following or with your own topic:
Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions?
What were your thoughts after reading chapter 15,
"Big Businesses and the Environment: Different Conditions, Different Outcomes"?
Or what are you thoughts on the final chapter:
"The World as a Polder: What Does It All Mean to Us Today?"
7 comments:
Alyssa Ackerman
Regarding lecture as well as Collapse, I found the information regarding Rwanda extremely interesting. The population density, clearly created an enormous problem with over crowding. Statistics declared this nation to have had three times the population density of any African nation, 9 million people in an area the size of Maryland, equating to 760 people per square mile. With the population doubling every twelve years, tensions were sure to do the same thing. With violence breaking out everywhere, it is interesting to think of the affects this sort of violence has on an individual. Discussing the healing process of the nation as a whole, as well as on an individual basis, it raises huge question as to what this kind of violence does to a person and a nation. How this will effect the children who saw their parents slaughtered, how can anyone learn to accept these atrocities, and how will it affect the nation. How does one heal from something like that?
I also find it quite interesting that the united states refused to step in and do anything while this genocide took place. We would love to step in and take over and or take part in the happenings of a nation where we could benefit (from oil for ex), yet even an intense genocide such as what took place in Rwanda, couldn’t pull us in. We see today, a similar situation regarding Darfur. Our media seems to ignore this issue, for we see very little of it on the news especially with elections coming up. Even in previous months, however (I noticed this last year specifically), our news coverage was on many things, ignoring the situation in Sudan almost completely.
Whether the government does this to blind the public of what is going on, in hopes that we will not pressure them to intervene, is a serious question that arises from something like this. If we don’t see it, in order to learn about what is going on, we must research ourselves. By avoiding such topics on the news, we can continue our daily lives, content, for we do not see these terrible occurrences taking place.
Lindsay Bienick
November 2, 2008
ADP III: 005
Last week in lecture, Professor Trumpey covered the Rawandian Genocide and the problemes that lead up to it through history of its people, economy, and environment. He then covered the idea of “homes” and what that means to people today as family sizes decrease and housing sizes increase in America. Thus, in oposition, we were shown a variety of ways to build homes to be environmently sustainable and completely suitable to live in, including the house that he is currently building. I found these vairous ways to be very interesting and I began to ask myself the question, “why do all American homes look the same as each other, and why were they built this way?” To me, it seems that the way we have our homes built makes no sense at all. They are getting larger and more complex, making it harder to get from room to room and to call to another family member. Sometimes they even appear maze-like. Why would someone want to live in such a confussing manner!? In places where people may need to worry about their children being harmed, it makes perfect sense that the clay homes are built like a maze. When looking at the other countries and there homes, the reasons why many were built in the ways that they were made sense and had explanation to it. Not to mention the fact that these other homes were made from natural resources and therefore, more sustainable to the environment. Professor Trumpey’s house, on the other hand, is different than those of most American homes in the way that it was built and arranged to accomadte for environmental purpouses. I would love to see all house begin to be built like this, but because we are a fast pace society, we refuse to take the time for something to be built like this. Also, as far as costs go, hopefully one day, the price to produce a house like this will be at a reasonable level (I forget if Prof. Trumpey mentioned if it is or isnt’).
As far as I go about talking of houses, I must touch on something new and exciting I found out at while visiting the Recycle, Reuse Center on Industrail drive. I was visiting for my field research project, when I came upon a new area of the building that was set a side for the Urbanwood Project. This project was created to reuse the local trees that have had to be cut down due to the Ashbore bug that has been eating the inside bark of the trees and has spread throughout all of Southeastern Michigan and is still continuing to move. Origanlly, these trees were just getting tossed in the chipper as waste, but thankfully, this project has been put together to help the local environment, community and family owned saw mills. This project allows the amount of discarded trees in S.E. Michigan to provide wood flooring to more than 2,300 homes each year. The wood itself is high quality, low in carbon footprint, and beautiful. This project is truly putting the wood to its best use. If most people began to integrate this wood into their homes, we would save thousands of other types of trees from being cut down. I made note to myself that next time I find myself in need of wood for a project, the center is definiatly where I am headed.
Also, while on the topic of the Recycle, Reuse Center, I relate back to the idea of American houses and ask myself why don’t more people purchase items and things for their home from centers like this. Almost every home that I have ever been, or atleast seen, the things inside have been newly purchased. The items in the center are low cost and efficient, plus reusing these help sustain the use of more resources. I will again be back a the center next time I need something for my home.
I apologize for this, but the slides Professor Trumpey showed about subdivisions (and huge numbers of similar houses) inspired me to be a little shameless...
Considering how many houses are built under strict guidelines, I am proud to say that my home is unique. Several subdivisions in my town have one “template house” that could easily represent every home in the neighborhood. My house is not located in one of these subdivisions, and therefore is not subject to facelessness.
See, my house is one of several in a rural area. My street is not entirely deserted, but does not hoard a large population. It isn’t your typical community: many of the residents own five acres or more, and yet the houses are relatively close to one another. The secret lies in making the sections of land as long and thin as possible—they’re almost like strips.
My house sits on one of these strips. It was built long ago, before “subdivision fever” hit Van Buren Township. It has been modified by my family, and the family that lived there before we moved in. See, the nice thing about “unique” houses is that the residents are allowed to be as creative with them as they want to be. They’re allowed to construct bathrooms, rip off exterior paneling, and paint things. I’ve heard many stories from subdivision-dwelling friends about how they aren’t even allowed to paint their shutters.
My house, on the other hand, is bright green. It has no exterior paneling—my parents painted the bare concrete some years ago.
Maybe it’s just because we don’t live in a largely populated area. If our house was placed in the middle of a subdivision, it might be considered—to steal a word Professor Trumpey used in Wednesday’s lecture—offensive. And that’s a real bummer. I just see it as a couple of folks exercising their artistic licenses on a large scale.
(Also, if you couldn't tell, that last post was written by Eleanor Schmitt.)
Erica Mouns
11/4/08 Post
Last week I was the discussion leader for chapter 15 in Collapse. One of the most interesting arguments that I found in this chapter was that it is the public’s fault that big businesses are (in a way) killing the environment. While this is surprising to hear, I agree that it is true. If people do not demand that businesses change their practices then they have no motivation to do so. But will the public ever care enough about the environment to make a difference? I’m not going to lie – when I go to the grocery store (or any store) I look for the cheapest price tag. If there was a label on a product that said it was environmental friendly I may take a second to think about which one to buy. But how do I know that that company actually is helping the environment? Should I really spend the extra 50 cents on the different brand? Our society is driven by the desire to have more money. We go to work to earn our money and we choose very carefully what to spend it on. I’m not sure if our culture will ever put the environment above saving a few bucks. Maybe one day, but I think that it is far away.
Something that I noticed while reading about the oil, mining, logging, and fishing industries was the amount of media that each receives. Every one knows that oil refineries can cause problems in nature. Some thing about oil drilling is on the news almost every day. We are worried about how much the oil costs and what will happen if/when the supply runs out. But how often do we hear about hard-rock mines on the television? I have no idea where mines are even located or how long they have been in operation. I think logging receives a little more attention because we are concerned with saving the rain forests. But why do we hear so much about oil? Diamond says that it is because oil is present in our every day lives. We need it to drive and to do almost all other activities. We use wood and we eat fish also, but those things are in the back of our minds.
One last thought on Collapse: Diamond says that the goal of businesses is to gain profit. That is totally true. If the company decides to implement environmentally friendly policies that cost the company money without any benefit then they would not be bringing in profits, which would make the stockholders lose money and eventually collapse the business. How do we find a way to make money and help the environment at the same time?
Samantha Orshan
Response 11/4/08
There are many reasons why a society may collapse, and Diamond describes different perspectives as to how this is possible. One of the main messages of the book Collapse is that the present-day environmental problems shouldn't be ignored, because plenty of examples from both ancient and recent times show that environmental factors as well as poor decisions can indeed bring about the collapse of a society. Therefore, modern societies should instead look for ways in which they need to adapt to address the environmental challenges.
One problem is that people sometimes move into a new environment and try to apply their experience from a superficially similar but actually extremely different environment where they previously had lived. Diamond gives the example of the Vikings moving from Norway to the apparently similar but actually more fragile Iceland and then to even more fragile Greenland. In such cases people may inflict excessive damage on their environment before they realize that the soil they have tilled and the forests they have cut won't recover as quickly as in a healthier environment.
An important point is that there are several things that the people now living in Greenland could have done, but didn't, to increase their chances of survival. They could have started eating fish, which they apparently refused to do. They could have tried establishing friendlier relations with the Inuit and learning from them such very useful techniques as how to catch fish and seals. They could have tried importing less of the expensive church-related items and luxury goods, and more useful materials such as iron and wood. Or they could have tried importing less stuff altogether and thus also wouldn't have to worry about hunting walrus and bears for export; instead they could avoid these risks and efforts, and spend this time hunting for food or visiting the American coast to collect wood and iron. But their chiefs, the wealthy segment of their society, had enough influence to prevent this. The whole Greenland society was very keen to maintain their image of themselves as Europeans and Christians, imitating the latest changes in fashion and architecture, even if this required them to import expensive stuff that they could not afford, and prevented them from establishing better ties with the Inuit, which could greatly increase their prospects of survival. Admittedly, part of the reason why they didn't make any of these potentially life-saving adaptations was that the way of life to which they had been accustomed had indeed worked well enough for them in the first few centuries after their settlement in Greenland, and they didn't want to experiment because most changes were likely to be changes for the worse.
Tae-Hyung Kim
11/4/08
ADP 3: Section 5
As a discussion leader for the chapter 15 in Collapse, I was able to get a grasp of answers to the question of "Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions?" In the chapter, the arthur Diamond mentions Joseph Tainter, an archaeologist and author of The Collapse of Complex Societies; Tainter, according to his theory, believes that the previous complex societies such as Maya should not have collapsed for its centralized decision-making. It is our tendency to believe this notion, however several historical examples including the collapse of the Roman Empire suggest that every society, regardless of its complexity, is prone to societal collapse (or it can be correct to say that the complexity within a society leads to collapse).
Diamond supports his claim with four factors of failed decision-making and how these lead to societal collapse. In fact, society often fails to anticipate problems before it happens, perceive it after it happens or attempts to solve it. The underlying cause behind these factor is self-interest: “good for me, bad for you and for everybody else.” The examples Diamond provides are the introduction of foxes from British colonists into Australia, French army in WWI, global warming, Montana fishermen illegally introducing pike to western Montana lakes. The whole question of this phenomenon brings up the ethical question of being egocentric. Is it inevitable to eradicate "selfishness" in society where every individual pursues self-interest, which is the underlying principal of capitalism. Perhaps, capitalism leads to societal collapse as seen in the recent financial crises in Iceland and Pakistan that requested the financial aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
I think some modification of our social structure needs to be made in order to prevent further societal collapse. The possible idea is the combination of both communism and democracy.
Moreover, the possible factor that might contribute to collapse is the difference in culture, which is explained by Diamond in the beginning of book. For example, China is still going through conflicts with other tribes or "nations" like Tibet and Mongolia.
Although Tibet, whose culture is far more different culture than that of China, recognizes itself as an independent nation, China strongly opposes it thus causing internal conflict. It is fortunate that Tibet is not as big as China and does not have as much military or political power as China does or else would have caused a war that leads to societal collapse.
Once again, it is now time to think carefully about the question of "Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions?"
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