a different kind of diamond

I have previously mentioned an addiction I have - tv on the internet. Today I talked to multiple people about various shows. When leaving work I had this fear that anyone who might be listening in on me throughout the day would think I was oblivious to the world outside the tube. But I promise I am not! I now feel a need to defend myself.

I want you all to know that I am currently reading a book. Yes, a real book made of paper with a spine, a title page, a table of contents and multiple pages. It even has chapters. Its a real grown up tome. And its really interesting I might add. Its called The Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and I am learning sooo much from reading this book. Its the second book by Jared Diamond an evolutionary biologist at UCLA. His first book was the acclaimed Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - which I loved. I found it incredibly interesting.

But back to The Collapse - which has taken me all across the world from the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, to Easter Island (what went through the minds of the remaining Easter Islanders when they chopped down the last tree on the island?), Greenland (why didn't the Norse take any hunting tips from the Inuit?), Japan (did you know the Japanese developed a forest management system independent of the Germans who are traditionally credited with such a feat), Rwanda (the 1994 genocide has a more complicated explanation than just ethnic tensions - there were environmental factors as well), and now I am reading about how Haiti and the Dominican Republic took different economic paths strongly due to enviornmental and political influences while sharing the same island.

This book is so crazy. Crazy smart. Diamond blows my mind with his smart and entertaining comparisons. He asks those general questions that you think may not really have answers - or at least answers that you could understand. And while he is a little redundant at times, he helps introduce you to ecology, economics, sociology, biology, anthropology, agriculture ... he has five main factors that he continue to come back to in order to help us understand why some societies have failed and some have succeeded. It is mind blowing. So don't you worry - I do more than just watch tv on the internet. I read books too.