Why the societies collapse Jared Diamond’s 2003 talk

He analyses the reasons why the societies collapse. He mentions societies that collapse, such as Mayas and Somalia. Stating that it is not because of one factor.

First of all, he defines a five point framework  in order to explain society collapses and illustrates by using  two as societies as example. They are Greenland North and South West Montana societies.  The five point are Human impact, on the environment, Climate change, Neighbor friendly societies, Hostile society and Political, social, cultural problem.

Second, He also speaks about that in many cases the collapse after  the society reach its peak in few decades. For instances, the Mayas and Soviet Union reach speak and very soon after that they collapse. He made analogy with a bacteria in petry dish   to explain mismatch between available recourses and resources consumption. Bacteria grow there the duplicate their number each generation but suddenly there is not food enough food. That is the reason because the societies collapse very soon after get their peaks.

Finally, he explains how the societies do not realizes that the collapsing . They are conflict of interest of decision making elites and it is hard for a society to make good decisions when there is a conflict involving strongly held values that are good in many circumstances but are poor in other circumstances. He explains that there a lot of thing that we do not understand  and need to understand about our societies to avoid collapses.