2210: The Collapse? - National Geographic Channel2210: The Collapse? - National Geographic Channel

WHAT LESSONS CAN WE DRAW FROM HISTORY?

Sorry guys for the late blogging,.......... but I finally decided it was about time for me to post something...anything really. 

Well, first off, we concluded the last chapters of Ishmael on Thursday, and it made me realize that one of the best ways to save the world is by looking into our past.  I know it sounds pretty dull, but bear with me here. While I was watching random videos on youtube, I came across a documentary from the National Geographic channel about the collapse of 2210--a story of which could potentially happen to us in the future. (I posted the video above)

While watching this, it reminded me of Jared Diamonds arguments about the past in,“The Ends of the World as We know Them,” and how the past may have answers into possibly saving our civilization from a catastrophic end. For instance, according to Diamond, history can teach us valuable lessons--two in particular. One lesson is about learning the differences between successful societies and societies heading towards failure. When it comes to historical collapses, Diamond gives five different groups of interacting factors that have been especially important: the damage that people have inflicted on their environment; climate change; enemies; changes in friendly trading partners; and the society’s political, economic, and social responses to these shifts. 

The second lesson he shares involves our willingness to reexamine our deeply, embedded values especially when those values change and are no longer making any sense, or are detrimentally hurting us in the long run. For example historically we’ve been taking the world for granted, we viewed the United States as a land of unlimited affluence, but that’s no longer viable in a world of finite resources. Thus, depleting our own resources as well as those of much of the rest of the world, can’t and shouldn’t be continued any longer. As both Jared Diamond and Daniel Quinn argue: humanities biggest problems today are entirely of our own making. In essence, I hope our global society today takes this opportunity--especially with the advantages we have e.g. historians, archaeologists, etc.---to learn from the mistakes of past civilizations. Now the real question is whether, or not we choose to use it.