Five factors that lead to the collapse of civilizations

TED Talks “Jared Diamond on why societies collapse”

Diamond suggest that five factors push civilizations toward collapse:

1. impacts on the environment/environmental degradation;
2. climate change;
3. loss of cooperation with other groups;
4. conflicts with hostile group; and
5. political, social, and economic factors.

I found his analysis of culture particularly interesting: the culture that served people in the past is often retained well past being useful, and the failure of a civilization to evolve culturally to match its evolving environment leads to collapse. I also think that he is correct to point out the very real short-term versus long-term conflict that human civilizations face. I am not sure that I totally agree with his analysis suggesting that short-term benefits only go to elites: although the elites may reap the greatest benefits from over-exploiting our environment, often they do so by enabling everyone to enjoy unsustainable benefits.

Diamond’s “time bombs with fuses of different lengths” metaphor is a nice one: kind of a Liebig’s Law for disasters. It does not matter how many imminent disasters we face, only which one gets us first. Recognizing that we do not have a single problem to solve is critical.