[extropy-chat] Collapse, by Jared Diamond

[Keith Henson]

At 09:09 AM 2/27/2006 -0800, you wrote:
>Lee writes:
> > Spike asked about Diamond's book "Collapse". I read it and it's
> > quite wonderful, especially if you're into history and human
> > ecology. Diamond is a writer of vast skill, and reading him is
> > simply effortless.
> >
> > He presents arguments pro and con with a good deal of objectivity,
> > well---at least as much as he is able to muster given that he has
> > a definite message in mind.
>
>I haven't read this book, but I was recently pointed to an online critique
>which claims that Diamond has seriously misstated the scholarship on the
>collapse of Easter Island:
>
>http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/EE%2016-34_Peiser.pdf
>
>"From Genocide to Ecocide: The Rape of Rapa Nui", by Benny Peiser.
>Peiser argues that Diamond has distorted the history of Rapa Nui (Easter
>Island) in order to fit his own eco-doomer preconceptions.  Diamond is
>somewhat notorious for his claim that agriculture was "the worst mistake
>in the history of the human race" and apparently has believed for some
>time that human culture tends to lead to environmental disaster.
>
>I'm not sure how convincing Peiser's thesis is here; I've read that he has
>an ideological opposition to Diamond's view.

That is to put it mildly.

>I thought the paper above
>was repetitive and rambling.  Nevertheless Peiser makes a good case that
>the truth is that we really don't know, and may never know, what happened
>on Easter Island.
>
>Peiser argues that the island's culture was successful and still building
>statues right up until the natives were attacked and stolen away by
>European slave traders.  (Half the statues on the island are still in
>the quarries, in the middle of construction.)  I don't know about that,
>but it seems clear that by the time Easter Island came to the attention
>of anything like the modern anthropoligical community, it had suffered
>from the depradations of the Europeans for generations.  Without any
>kind of written cultural history, oral accounts from the few remaining
>natives were fragmentary and inconsistent.  Worse, descriptions of the
>island from early European visitors are equally contradictory, some
>describing barrren landscapes while others marvelling at the fertility
>and mentioning forests.
>
>Peiser argues that Diamond has picked and chosen among these many
>accounts, selecting only those that buttress his thesis of "ecocide".
>Peiser sees Diamond's work as falling into a larger class of analyses
>which close their eyes to the obvious and well-documented European
>genocide of the Easter Islanders, preferring to focus on this supposed
>self-destruction.
>
>As I said, I don't know if Peiser really makes a strong case for a
>thriving Easter Island culture right up until the 18th and 19 centuries,
>but it does seem clear that there are so many lines of evidence pointing
>in different ways, that at this point it is impossible to say what
>really happened.

I have been a studying Easter Island for a number of years.  I have read 
most of the papers Diamond cites and a number of others.  My take on the 
Easter Island history is that there is about as much controversy as plate 
tectonics.  I.e., Diamond's view of what happened there is mainstream and 
deeply supported by consistent evidence.

Something like 20 people were the founding population.  At the peak there 
were about 20,000.  At the bottom of the crash, about 1000.  By the time 
Europeans first visited, the population had recovered to perhaps 2.5 times 
the low point.

There is no question that subsequent European contact was extremely 
destructive, but that happened well beyond the low point.

What happened at Easter Island was not unique except for the isolation.

I don't think I have an ax to grind on this subject, though I have used it 
as an example in my articles about the cause of wars.

Wish I could submit a fMRI scan per Drew Westen to show what parts of my 
brain are engaged when thinking about the Easter Island history.  :-)

Keith Henson