yep, Diamond is not just “good for understanding the LR perspective”, he’s excellent at it! very thorough and well grounded in science.

thanks for the heads up on Daniel Quinn. will check him out.

~C

good question. here’s what Diamond said in a Salon interview:

“If you don’t work with business, you are certain to be doomed to failure, because businesses along with governments are the most potent forces in the world today. Also, it’s important to understand why some businesses make messes and some businesses don’t make messes, and insofar as the laws of society itself produce those different outcomes, it’s the responsibility of the public to pass laws, buy products and boycott products that will encourage businesses to behave better.”

what i like about Diamond’s perspective is that it’s global rather than U.S. or First World-centric (e.g. Go green, alternative energy, cut emissions, etc.). that’s why i take him more seriously than environmentalists who are anti-this or anti-that. here’s what Diamond said about China.

“China is the country with the world’s biggest population and it also has the fastest-growing economy. The Chinese would like to catch up to first-world living standards but there are so many Chinese, the population is so large, and their consumption rates are, on average, so far below the First World today that if China alone caught up to first-world living standards that would double the entire world’s consumption of steel, zinc, tin, lead and other major metals. So China has enormous impact on the world. When you think about that you can get discouraged, particularly when you see pictures of air quality in Beijing.”

he also addresses the problem of overpopulation in Third World countries:

“We have this fantasy that people in the Third World don’t care about population issues and would like to have lots of babies, when in fact my experience, from countries such as Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, Kenya and Tanzania, is that people in the Third World understand the dangers of overpopulation much better than people in the United States. They know about contraceptives but they can’t afford the contraceptives. And the American government is making it difficult for them to get the contraceptives.”

and then he address American values that need to be discarded:

“One of the two or three key issues is discarding values dear to us, values that we held for a long time and that were important in the history of the United States but just no longer make sense today. The two traditional American values that I think — that I know — have to be discarded are, first, unbridled consumerism resulting from our sense of being in a land of unlimited resources…. And the other long-held American value is the value derived from the United States’ relative isolation. George Washington in his farewell address warned Americans about the danger of entangling alliances, and for a couple of hundred years the United States was able to function well because we were separated by oceans from any country that might damage us. But now the oceans don’t separate us from countries that could damage us. Now, even desperately poor countries like Afghanistan and Iraq can raise absolute hell with our economy — as well as killing a few thousand people in the process.”

how exactly do you go about discarding an idea?

“One can answer that two ways: first, by looking at countries that have successfully replaced or are successfully replacing dearly held ideas; second, one can ask what’s going to replace — for us — unbridled consumerism…. Now, as for us, what’s going to replace consumerism will be the recognition that we have to live within our means, that we’re part of the whole world, and that consumerism simply is no longer viable if we want to make a world that’s going to make sense for our children. We have to live in such a way that we pass on a worthwhile world to our children. And that’s a wonderful ideal that can replace consumerism, that will have to replace consumerism.”

and finally, he even takes a stab at Michael Crichton.

“…my previous book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” has sold more copies than Michael Crichton’s one and a half million, so I think my new book will get to more readers. And the other thing is that Michael Crichton is a very skilled writer of fiction. And fiction is, by definition, the telling of stories that are untrue. He’s very good at that. And I’m a writer of nonfiction, which aims to be the telling of stories that are true.”

check out the rest of the interview.

~C

good question. here’s what Diamond said in a Salon interview:

“If you don’t work with business, you are certain to be doomed to failure, because businesses along with governments are the most potent forces in the world today. Also, it’s important to understand why some businesses make messes and some businesses don’t make messes, and insofar as the laws of society itself produce those different outcomes, it’s the responsibility of the public to pass laws, buy products and boycott products that will encourage businesses to behave better.”

what i like about Diamond’s perspective is that it’s global rather than U.S. or First World-centric (e.g. Go green, alternative energy, cut emissions, etc.). that’s why i take him more seriously than environmentalists who are anti-this or anti-that. here’s what Diamond said about China.

“China is the country with the world’s biggest population and it also has the fastest-growing economy. The Chinese would like to catch up to first-world living standards but there are so many Chinese, the population is so large, and their consumption rates are, on average, so far below the First World today that if China alone caught up to first-world living standards that would double the entire world’s consumption of steel, zinc, tin, lead and other major metals. So China has enormous impact on the world. When you think about that you can get discouraged, particularly when you see pictures of air quality in Beijing.”

he also addresses the problem of overpopulation in Third World countries:

“We have this fantasy that people in the Third World don’t care about population issues and would like to have lots of babies, when in fact my experience, from countries such as Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, Kenya and Tanzania, is that people in the Third World understand the dangers of overpopulation much better than people in the United States. They know about contraceptives but they can’t afford the contraceptives. And the American government is making it difficult for them to get the contraceptives.”

and then he address American values that need to be discarded:

“One of the two or three key issues is discarding values dear to us, values that we held for a long time and that were important in the history of the United States but just no longer make sense today. The two traditional American values that I think — that I know — have to be discarded are, first, unbridled consumerism resulting from our sense of being in a land of unlimited resources…. And the other long-held American value is the value derived from the United States’ relative isolation. George Washington in his farewell address warned Americans about the danger of entangling alliances, and for a couple of hundred years the United States was able to function well because we were separated by oceans from any country that might damage us. But now the oceans don’t separate us from countries that could damage us. Now, even desperately poor countries like Afghanistan and Iraq can raise absolute hell with our economy — as well as killing a few thousand people in the process.”

how exactly do you go about discarding an idea?

“One can answer that two ways: first, by looking at countries that have successfully replaced or are successfully replacing dearly held ideas; second, one can ask what’s going to replace — for us — unbridled consumerism…. Now, as for us, what’s going to replace consumerism will be the recognition that we have to live within our means, that we’re part of the whole world, and that consumerism simply is no longer viable if we want to make a world that’s going to make sense for our children. We have to live in such a way that we pass on a worthwhile world to our children. And that’s a wonderful ideal that can replace consumerism, that will have to replace consumerism.”

and finally, he even takes a stab at Michael Crichton.

“…my previous book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” has sold more copies than Michael Crichton’s one and a half million, so I think my new book will get to more readers. And the other thing is that Michael Crichton is a very skilled writer of fiction. And fiction is, by definition, the telling of stories that are untrue. He’s very good at that. And I’m a writer of nonfiction, which aims to be the telling of stories that are true.”

check out the rest of the interview.

~C

Unfortunately, this is the only way to produce plentiful meat on the massive scale that Americans expect. The only current alternative involves dismantling this infrastructure and moving to a system based on small farms and local production. (Hence, the whole local food/locavore movement.)

I’d be interested to see if Diamond tackles this issue.