Collapse Response 1

"The ghostly impression that the quarry made on me came from my sense of being in a factory, all of whose workers had suddenly quit for mysterious reasons, thrown down their tools, and stomped out, leaving each statue in whatever stage it happened to be a the moment" (page 1 of Diamond's Collapse). I thought it was interesting that Diamond envisioned workers throwing down their tools and quitting. It was as if Diamond was implying that one reason that Easter Island collapse was because the workers had rebelled. And it makes sense; if proletarians just stopped working for capitalists, the capitalists would not be able to earn profit and that would be the end of capitalism. Then, the proletarians will have more power than they used to and will be able to create a more "equal" system. In this case, a collapse is a good thing but in others like the one in Easter Island causes the island to become deserted.

It was on page 7 when I figured that the cause of Easter Island's collapse is the wasting of resources: "... for hundreds of thousands of years before human arrival and still during the early days of human settlement, Easter was not at all a barren wasteland but a subtropical forest of tall trees and woody bushes." Diamond also mentioned that the process of creating statues used up a lot of food in the first line of 2 paragraphs prior. Then in the next paragraph, Diamond stated that resources were also used to make "thick long ropes" to construct the statues. Based on these two findings, we can infer that because of constructing statues, the islanders used resources and eventually ran out of resources; causing the collapse. Diamond blames the unsustainable resources on the humans on page 9: "Deforestation must have begun some time after human arrival by A.D. 900, and must have been completed by 1722, when Roggeveen arrived and saw no trees over 10 feet tall." After humans arrived, resources were being used faster than they were created so before trees could reach 10 feet, it was cut down for food and/or ropes.

On page 13, where all the quotations are at, it states that "'Technology will solve our problems, never fear, we'll find a substitute for wood'". I think that it is exactly what countries of industrialization think; they think that machines use up less resources when really, it uses up more. It goes back to how systems are more complicated because components are constantly added into the systems. Industrialized countries that replace human labor with machines are making things more complicated because they have to find people to operate the machines and now they also have to find resources to power the machines. Then it says "'We don't have proof that there aren't palms somewhere else on Easter, we need more research, your proposed ban on logging is premature and drive by fear-monging." People who think this way those who waste paper and say "they can plant more trees" *hint hint*. So to those of you who do not think about the amount of resources being used up, think about Easter Island.