The Collapse of Society: a theory from Jared Diamond examined

"In the present book focusing on collapses rather than buildups, I compare many past and present societies that differed with respect to environmental fragility, relations with neighbors, political institutions, and other "input" variables postulated to influence a society's stability." - Jared Diamond

I bought the book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed over a year ago (it's by Jared Diamond - same author who wrote 'Guns, Germs, and Steel': very well researched, by the way) and I finally had time to read it, and just finished it. I've only read it once, so my opinion on it is pretty worthless right now, and I admit I skimmed a few chapters.

The thesis is very interesting. Diamond is going to talk about how societies live or die: pretty important, huh? What do we care about when it comes to our society's survival? Technological advancement? The biggest, baddest weapons? Technological sophistication in general? Should we get the values that third-world nations have instead? Should we try to get rid of European culture, since it's lead to near-global subjugation?

Societies die because they neglect the environment. I disagree. To show where I'm coming from I'll focus on 2 examples.

1. Consider Easter Island, an island in the southeastern Pacific. Is its culture dying? If so, why? Diamond thinks its because its natural resources (minerals, forests, water, etc . . .) are being used up and that the place is getting overpopulated. But the evidence doesn't support this. Carl Lipo and Terry Hunt got some soil samples from the island and found out how old they were through Radiocarbon dating. The dating showed that the island didn't have anyone on it until 200 to 800 years after Diamond's thesis requires. There hasn't been people there long enough for Diamond's theory to be plausible.

2. Consider Greenland. What happened to Viking society? Diamond claims that the Vikings were racist against the Inuit, and that this meant that the Vikings weren't open to different Inuit ideas that would have kept them from starving. This lead the Vikings to have an agriculture that wasn't good enough to feed them. But Viking scholarship doesn't support this at all. They say the Viking diet switched from farm to marine food. So, the Vikings didn't need to get fishing lessons from the primitive Inuit to survive. The Vikings weren't just agrarian.

The Vikings died off - according to scholars - because of the mini-ice-age (known from tree rings and core samples), and how that made the Vikings switch their diet back to farm foods (which didn't grow well anymore because of the ice-age), and because the Inuit killed off a lot of the Vikings because they were competing to get that marine diet.

That's just a few. But this isn't to say the book is all bad. It's actually very, very good. I actually liked it better than GGS. Remember the opening quote? He looks at a bunch of societies, past and present, and finds out how the societies collapsed, and finds out what the input variables are. There are 8 of them. Cutting down forests. Problems with soil. Problems with water. Too much hunting. Too much fishing. How new species interfere with native species' way of living. Too much reproduction. Impact of overpopulation. He goes into how any combinations of these factors made a society collapse in the past.

For future societies, there are 4 input variables: man-made global warming (hmmmm), too much toxins in the environment, not enough energy, too much human tampering with Nature's ability to use photosynthesis.

The book is divided into 4 sections. Section 1 focuses on Montana; section 2, on past societies; section 3, on modern societies; and section 4, Diamond gives us some ideas on how to help our society from not dying.

There is no doubt that Diamond is an original thinker, a clear, analytical writer, who makes very good arguments, who has done very affective (even if neglectful in some areas) research. Get ready to take a tour through time, into all sorts of societies, learn their ways, and at least read a very interesting theory as to why they died. You'll also get acquainted with mainstream social-science models that help you understand a society, diagnose and organize the problems of a society, and finally give the medicine for the society's survival. Diamond writes very lucidly, and the dry parts are seasoned with a subtle sense of humor that makes for an interesting read throughout.

Illegal Immigration in Arizona: why is Obama not giving Arizona a break?

I always find it easier to picture states or nations in terms of neighborhoods or homes. It’s a little more familiar and concrete that way. Imagine that you live in a well-ordered, policed town, and in order to fund the town, the rightful citizens are taxed. So far, so good. To keep the town in working order, you have to have documentation that you’re a citizen. Makes sense: since if you’re not documented, you can find a way out of getting taxed. That way, you get all the benefits of being in our town, but none of the cost.

This is what is happening in Arizona. Arizona is a border state: in other words, it is a town that borders a foreign neighborhood that aren’t citizens of Arizona. Every day, more and more citizens from Mexico pour over into Arizona, breaking state and federal immigration laws. But this is a problem. Remember: to keep the state fiscally afloat, its citizens need to be taxed. But if you’re in Arizona illegally, you can easily evade taxes. Now, watch what happens.

Mexicans take advantage of the hospitals, the schools, and tax-funded prisons. But what happens if more and more Mexicans come in, use the schools, the hospitals, and fill the prisons, but don’t pay taxes? The state eventually becomes broke. How else are all these services and benefits going to be funded?

As a result, citizens of Arizona are fleeing north, as did the citizens of California.

What is cool is that Arizona governor Jan Brewer had enough. She enforced the immigration laws of her state, because the federal government has been so slow to act while her state is in a fiscal crisis, the same crisis that is making California bankrupt.

But - for some reason that I’m not aware of - Obama doesn’t like what Brewer is doing. Obama called Brewer ‘misguided’. To make the job of Arizona police harder, he has gotten the Justice Department involved to make sure no one’s civil rights are violated. What is frustrating is that we all know what that means. The minute a police officer is suspicious of someone, he’s going to hesitate, because he knows his judgment is under a microscope, and he knows there’s a real possibility that the ACLU could probably prove - in some crooked court - that the ‘undocumented worker’ was racially profiled.

Do you see what’s happening? This is just annoying to me. It seems like Obama can do what he wants - since it is ‘legal’ - but he knows what he is doing. Why not let the Arizona police do their job? Why not give a whole darn state some faith? The federal government isn’t doing anything, and in the mean time, the state is fiscally dying. By doing this, Obama is feeding a theory about him (that isn’t fair at first glance) that’ll make me never vote for him: the majority of Mexicans vote democrat - connect the dots.

So, Obama cares more for the civil rights of people who don’t have a right to be here, and less for the rights of hard-working, legal citizens, who have to go to work everyday, get taxed, and have those taxes pay for the services and benefits of people who evade our laws, who evade taxes, and leech off the system, until the system is dry? I mean, money doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s got to be taxed. Without taxing hard-working Americans, the Nation’s bank account plummets. I mean, do you guys see the pattern?

Another thing we have a right to do as a Nation is put our military on the border. I think this is called for. Drug cartels come across the border everyday. A lot of times, they’re escorted by the Mexican military - read that again. Hard working farmers have been murdered, along with the police. Kidnappings. Etc. There’s got to be a seal on the border. We can’t just be a nanny forever. It just doesn’t work that way. If you continue to be nice and just let anyone in whenever, we’re not going to last very much longer. It’s just the logic of it, as I see it.

I know the immigration issue is complicated. But seriously. Why is Obama silent on it? There’s 12 to 20 million illegal aliens here. 12 to 20 million! And that’s just roughly. We’re not taking into account all their family connections. No nation in the history of civilization has survived with that track record. Rome did it. Europe is doing it with the muslims.

A part of a nation is its culture. If citizens aren’t naturalized, they bring their culture with them. Multiculturalism is a good thing, and that’s the cool thing about America. We can have a chinatown, a ‘south of the border’, etc. But first and foremost, they’re Americans. A lot of these Mexicans - and you can hear it straight from the horse’s mouth - believe that the southwestern part of America was stolen from them, and that it’s theirs, and they’re going to get it back, not militarily, but from the ground up, from the inside out, coming in, evading the laws, using the voting system, infiltrating American culture, and getting it back, and getting back at us that way.

That’s no way to come to America. That’s a horrible attitude to have. Something has got to be done. And Arizona has taken the initiative. Some statistics show that around 8 million African Americans are being shut off from jobs they’d otherwise have if illegal Mexicans didn’t have them: and Al Sharpton is going to march against Arizona law against the illegals? Oh, the irony.

What is also funny is the irony somewhere else. Mexico has a lot of indignation toward us if we don’t bend over backwards to take in their illegals. But Mexico deports their illegal aliens. Isn’t that hypocritical? And why do they do that? Well, they have immigration laws, and they know they can’t stay fiscally afloat if they have a boatload of illegal citizens who can leech off the services and benefits without being taxed. They know money doesn’t just pop into being out of nothing.

I’ll stop here, but I just thought I’d write this because I think Arizona is doing the right thing, and that Obama is just annoying me.

Robert E. Howard's masterpiece: Conan of Cimmeria

"But not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the spirit of the storm in their blood, restless harbingers of violence and bloodshed, knowing no other path."
Robert E. Howard



One fateful night, Robert E. Howard created the character of Conan, a barbarian, a wonderer, a thief, a pirate, a mercenary, and finally king of Aquilonia. He is a hulk of a man, armed with sword or axe or both, battling ravenous demons, aliens from other worlds, witches, vampires, sorcerers, all to retrieve some rare potion or medicine having peculiar magical powers. The women are scantily clad and mostly slaves, and there is always a bratty princess who gives the barbarian his marching orders. And lets not forget the legions and legions of bloodthirsty barbarians that populate Howard’s mythical world, which rivals Middle-Earth in its detail and scope.



This is Conan. King Conan. Conan the Barbarian. This is a character born and created during The Depression, in the early 30’s. Since the publishing of the books, we’ve seen him in comic books, two films (Schwarzenegger), and the recent graphic novel. But go back to the covers of the books. A half-naked, muscle-bound savage stands atop a giant mound of slain bodies, and two voluptuous maidens wrap their arms around his thigh.

This begs an important question: who are these stories for? Who is the audience here? Is this supposed to be the prepubescent’s fantasy? Is this for guys with too much testosterone? Is it lurid, shoddy crap trying to pass itself off as solid literature? Is it a subtle appeal to sadism or masochism or rape or lesbianism? The short answer is: Yep. But the longer answer is that there’s bit more to it than that.

Consider when Conan confesses to his comrade Prospero:

“"These matters of statecraft weary me as all the fighting I have done never did. . . . In the old free days all I wanted was a sharp sword and a straight path to my enemies. Now no paths are straight and my sword is useless."

As far as his nature, Howard compared Conan to a tiger or a wolf. He was simple; he used instinct; he was not a thinker. He did not ponder. He was a man of action. He is undomesticated. There is no red tape. There is no negotiation. He doesn’t play chess with all the intricacies of political drama. His sword slashes through all that bureaucratic twaddle. He doesn’t get depressed. He doesn’t have any fear. He doesn’t doubt. He does the bidding of Crom and that is that. The only thing that changes is what he does with his women and wine afterwards.

This is the fictive Hyborian age, which means “the barbaric dweller beyond the north wind”, some time before 10,000 B.C. Conan is my guilty pleasure. If you like sword and sorcery, this is it. It doesn’t get any better. The skeleton of every story is a quest for a treasure or a magic talisman or vengeance, and the enemy is always a demon or a witch or a sorcerer or a wizard, and there is always a collapsing palace or temple or a hidden tunnel or room or underwater passage. Magic is everywhere. We have delicious passages like:

"Ships did not put unasked into this port, where dusky sorcerers wove awful spells in the murk of sacrificial smoke mounting eternally from blood-stained altars where naked women screamed, and where Set, the Old Serpent, archdemon of the Hyborians but god of the Stygians, was said to writhe his shining coils among his worshippers."

No matter what the task, Conan finds a way and never surrenders. Remember in the movie when he was crucified? Read this:

“Conan drew his head back as far as he could, waiting, watching with the terrible patience of the wilderness and its children. The vulture swept in with a swift roar of wings. Its beak flashed down, ripping the skin on Conan's chin as he jerked aside his head, then before the bird could flash away, Conan's head lunged forward on his mighty neck muscles and his teeth, snapping like those of a wolf, locked on the bare, wattled neck. . . . Grimly he hung on, the muscles starting out in lumps on his jaws. And the scavenger's neck bones crunched between those powerful teeth. With a spasmodic flutter the bird hung limp. Conan let go, spat blood from his mouth."

Or this:

"But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet."



Howard is a master of pulp. His popular fiction was groundbreaking. This myth is topnotch. Conan is a character hacked out of the very sinews of saga, epic, or legend. He is less a person than a force of nature. Imitated much, but rarely equaled: Conan is a staggering character and Howard, a pioneer.

Lost interest in "Lost"

I have been an avid viewer of the show Lost for quite sometime. I remember being introduced to the show after its first season was on DVD and watching it through and catching up to the rest of the world in what felt like one very confusing hour. With the rest of the world, I wondered what was going on.

Are they in purgatory? Is this a figment of their imagination? What happened to the kids kidnapped? And, "Is that what I think it is, a smoke monster as well as a polar bear? on an Island?"

This show drove me nuts.

In a good way. I was initially intrigued by its new style of storytelling. Showing through flashbacks, how each individual ended up on the island. Some involved in sketchy things, others it seemed coincidental. Either way the questions of morality intrigued me and each week brought me back pining for more.

I have always had a love/hate relationship with this show. After an episode I would make sweeping declarations of my "Breaking Up" with Lost. I did not care anymore, they weren't telling me anything. And if my past relationships with girls are any indication of my level of dedication, I'm surprised I had made it that far anyway.

Well, 6 years later, I'm still a loyal viewer. But, not without my regrets. I feel like a husband looking for an excuse to get out of a mediocre marriage with my only complaint being, its not like the first two years and the wife saying "Of course jackass, it never is, ask anybody."

So what am I left to do?

Here's my problem. I no longer care. The characters no longer interest me. The moral questions that at one time stared you in the face are no longer there. Instead, we are given a puzzle. A big white canvas of a puzzle with no discernible way of deciphering an answer. To many questions left unanswered and not enough time to answer.

I miss the moral ambiguities. The burning questions that live in the gray area.

Sayid: Torture or not to torture?

Jack: What is a good person?

Sawyer: Cynicism

Kate: Torn between 2 lovers.

I could go on. But the more I think about it, the more I am disappointed in the current trajectory of the show and miss the early seasons and the world of potential they held.

At this point I do not see how it can end in any kind of satisfying way, except that it would be over and I would have one more hour back in my life each week.

A defense of Paul Giamatti's portrayal of John Adams

I just began watching the TV mini-series "John Adams", spanning 7 episodes (covering 50 years) tonight. Paul Giamatti’s portrayal of the 2nd president was jaw-dropping. But this blog isn’t going to be a vehicle of praise, but a critique of a criticism. Alessandra Stanley wrote a piece for the New York Times called “Blow Hard, Patriot, President”, which argues that Giamatti’s performance was weak, and that John Adams is the Achilles heel of “John Adams”. Though she may be right, and I profoundly disagree, I found her reasons inadequate.

The real president John Adams was an amazing man among amazing men. He did have a complicated personality filled with overt and latent contradictions. The overall canvass of his personality is brilliantly and lucidly explored in the biography ‘John Adams’, by renowned biographer David McCollough. In the show, you have box seats to the Continental Congress itself. Passions soar, debates rage, and politics smolder. You can see the sagacious humility of Washington, the pugnacious feistiness of John Adams, the reserved and quiet wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, and the wit of a Renaissance man, Dr. Benjamin Franklin.

But what exactly does Stanley think is wrong with the Giamatti performance? First, she thinks that Abigail is reduced to one-word summations of character traits in her husband in an effort to underline some unnoticed – because not sufficiently acted – mannerism. Well, I don’t agree at all. Abigail talks a lot. I mean, just watch the show: she and John have lengthy discussions about a variety of subjects. It’s just false to say otherwise. But even if she did that, what character trait was trying to be emphasized? Nothing is noted.

She further says, “Mr. Giamatti is a prisoner of a limited range and rubbery, cuddly looks — in 18th-century britches and wigs, he looks like Shrek.” On the contrary, if you read McCollough’s biography, Giamatti’s look is exactly what it was in my imagination. He was short, unseemly, dirty, unbecoming, bald, and pudgy. Giamatti took on this look with perfection. A prisoner of limited range? I beg for examples. He is the stern but affectionate father, the loving husband, the concerned husband, the reluctant politician, the insolent debater, the man of conviction, a rival, a friend, an implacable foe, patriot. What else does Stanley want?

Stanley muses about the bewilderment that viewers (ignorant of the biography) will have at the initial visual shock of seeing a Giamatti portray Adams. All I can say is that ignorance is not bliss. An ignorant critic is a scourge on proper artistic enjoyment. All you have to do is follow the adjectives and match them with the visual appearance you see on screen. If you can’t see it, then you’re either lacking in imagination or comprehension of the language.

The only reason Stanley marshals forth is his bias (which he has the right to have!) for another actor’s role as Adams: William Daniels – who played him in a musical called “1776”. I don’t deny he did great: I do deny the implied notion that Daniels exhausts any and all qualities Adams might have had, or that they were exhausted by a solitary performance over 40 years ago. I haven’t seen the Daniels performance. I don’t need to. What Stanley needs to do is give reasons why Giamatti doesn’t have the “power or the flexibility” to pull it off. An incredulous stare isn’t an argument.

So, I disagree with Stanley. Giamatti was perfect for the role, not only because of the look, but for the tone, even the eyes. They bulge with stress and the tenderness of his voice in a calm moment seems like a hindrance. The resulting paroxysms break through believably. He is a man for the law and when that conviction is breached, his passion fumes. Giamatti’s somewhat calm, reserved, and introverted personality resonates with that "Adams’ drive" and passion in a really insightful way.

Science Fiction at its finest: Minority Report

I’ve always thought that Philip K. Dick was a philosopher masquerading as a novelist. Minority Report - starring Tom Cruise - is an excellent film of science fiction, done in the category of film noir, by an amateur of film noir (Spielberg), but nonetheless done very effectively. The premise is an immemorial philosophical problem. Recall the lines (after throwing a ball):

John Anderton: Why'd you catch that?
Danny Witwer: Because it was going to fall.
John Anderton: You're certain?
Danny Witwer: Yeah.
John Anderton: But it didn't fall. You caught it. The fact that you prevented it from happening doesnt change the fact that it was *going* to happen.

You catch your wife of 20 years in bed with your best friend. She has had an affair. You’re in a rage and you form the intention to kill them. All of a sudden, a storm of police barrage the house, and before the intention could grow roots for half a second, you’re under arrest for the future murder of your wife and best friend. But I haven’t done anything yet, you think!

Cruise is John Anderton. He is in charge of the Department of Pre-crime in Washington D.C. It is the year 2054. The city swallows the earth. There is no Nature. This is a dystopia that gives Orwell’s 1984 a run for its money. Technology has reached its zenith. Advertisements follow you around like pop-up ads on the Internet, only they're tailored to suit your every need, and addressed to you personally. Cars race to and fro, horizontally or vertically. Homes are equipped with state of the art technology. Everything seems to be voice activated. Bottom line: this is the future Marty didn’t go far enough to see!

Remember your wife and the best friend you caught in the act? Remember those guys who arrested you before you did anything? Well, that’s the Department of Pre-crime - and Cruise is the ringleader. The Department gets their leads from a very reliable source: the precogs. There are 3 of them, but of the 3 Agatha is the most powerful. They can see the future!

As with any government agency that is both highly successful and morally questionable, the Justice Department has to stir the pot to keep everyone accountable: or are they jealous?

Art direction, production design, and cinematography are spectacular. Nearly every edited scene is full of details that repeated viewings won’t be able to exhaust. Consider the computer Cruise manipulates with his hands like the conductor of a technological symphony. Every image can be moved, adjusted, magnified, closed out, opened, highlighted, superimposed. Classical music plays in the background. Disks are made of glass, inserted in some high-tech CPU, and our imagination just swims and gets lost in all these details. This is a world we can’t wrap our heads around.

A problem happens when the pre-cogs see Cruise commit a murder. The hunter soon becomes the hunted and the story shifts to a fugitive theme. There is a very affective scene of Cruise and Agatha scrambling through a mall away from the cops with insightful directions about where to stand, for how long, who not to look at, where to run: she knows what would happen if you didn’t do what she said.

Another cool scene happens when Anderton is fleeing from the spiders. There is an aerial scene, showing the camera hovering just above all the adjacent apartments, after ‘spiders’ are sent in to do exhaustive retina scans. The jet-pack fight scene strays away from the cartoonish acrobatics of Spiderman or the nature-defying stunts of the post-Matrix era and stands firm in realism. It's actually one of my favorite action sequences. 'Don't run, John', advises his long time partner. 'Everybody runs.', quips Anderton.

This is one of my favorite science fiction movies. It has a great story with an unpredictable twist and all the while juggling some hefty philosophical problems. One can’t help but focus on the paradox in nearly all time-travel movies. If Anderton did something that the pre-cogs didn’t see, then why didn’t they see ‘that’ instead? But I’ll quit there.

Voice in the Wilderness

I am severely depressed with the current state of television.

Two and Half Men is one of the top rated shows and I'm pretty sure there are like 87 new hospital dramas starting.

ER was the best there will ever be, lets just get used to that fact.

A few years ago a few television shows were given their start. Heroes, Studio Sixty on the Sunset Strip, 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights. In my opinion, Studi

o sixty was the best. It was created and written by Aaron Sorkin (Who I have a giant crush on). He wrote movies like A Few Good Men, The American President and created and wrote my favorite show of all time The West Wing. Unfortunately, it was cancelled after a season for reasons beyond me.

Moving on, we have 30 rock. Hysterical. Tina Fey is a genius and super cute. I love her with my whole heart. May it never be cancelled.

Next, Heroes, this show started strong, but in my opinion has tapered out and I have lost interest. I have also lost interest in LOST but that is a whole different discussion.

Finally, the point of this blog.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. I was not interested in this show in the beginning. It is about a high school football obsessed town. Their world revolves around friday nights and they turn 16 year old quarterbacks into gods. The idea of the show did not interest me, it was also based off of a ESPN original movie and it was on friday nights (Attn: Party People! Friday night is my night!). The factors here did not add up to Matt Johnson tuning in.

A year went by and shows were getting dropped like bad habits. Studio's were canceling things faster than Brangelina could adopt kids. During this almost nazi-like extermination, one show was developing a fan base. A serious one. ESPN sports analysts were talking about this Highschool football show, News networks were doing pieces on it. It was bizarre. I couldn't get my head around it, where were the sit-ins and MLK's for studio 60? So I did what any responsible, mature adult would do. I boycotted FNL.

Fast forward 4 years.

Steven King has become one of my favorite authors. I recently read The Shining and a ton of his short stories and I cannot get enough of this guy. He might be the our generations Charles Dickens. Who knows?

Anyway, he writes a column in Entertainment Weekly and he made a case for FNL that I had not heard before. He talked about the tight, clever writing. The moral decisions, watching these students make decisions that are way outside of their maturity level, it's genuinely engaging.

Based on his recommendation, I watched an episode...and then...I watched 3 seasons.

Hands down, with out a shadow of a doubt, it is the best show on television. It is the voice in the wilderness, it is the tether of creativity in a world gone reality mad. It reminds me and gives me hope that truly excellent storytelling can exist in a world of reality TV and CSI: Prostitutes.

I encourage, no demand your attention to this show. You will not regret it. It is the Highschool you would attend now, as an adult. You are reminded how those minor decisions as a 16 year old really were your world. Nothing else mattered at the time.

I applaud the creators and writers for a job well done. I just hope they don't let me down.