On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 11:27:57 -0500, Jeff Wisnia
wrote:
snip
The title is "Collapse" authored by Jared Diamond, the guy who wrote
"Guns, Germs and Steel" a few years ago.

He's studied why some societies have been successful for a long time
while others have failed, and describes the prevalent reasons for the
demise of once thriving societies.

One of the notable failure means has been an overusage of natural
resources by an increasing population, ending up in there being "nothing
fer nobody" left, whereupon people start killing each other to try and
stay alive themselves.
snip
===============
The phrase "tragedy of the commons" is frequently used in this
context. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

While the increase in population results in an increase in
consumption, the larger problem seems to be that the folk wisdom
"take what you need and leave the rest for seed" is ignored.

for elaboration on this see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy...rdin.27s_essay
(annotation of original article)
http://www.sciencemag.org/sciext/sotp/commons.dtl
( original article and others -- note that this monograph
specifically addresses the futility of attempting to solve
non-tecnical problems by technical means.
http://www.econ.ox.ac.uk/members/mar...page/lives.pdf
http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/AppalFor/commons.html



Unka George
(George McDuffee)

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not
the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things
which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat
to be a cause of international conflict.
Simone Weil (1909-43), French philosopher, mystic.
«The Power of Words», in Nouveaux Cahiers (1 and 15 April 1937;
repr. in Selected Essays, ed. by Richard Rees, 1962)