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History books.

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Beren:
I quite liked this biography of Robert Oppenheimer, American Prometheus. It's a bit long, but quite in depth. Not specifically history, exactly, but it ends up being a rather decent overview of the los alamos project and then Oppenheimer's trials and tribulations with McCarthy.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.

pilsner:

--- Quote from: supersheep on 13 Nov 2009, 12:30 ---My reading of what I've seen of Collapse is that the process of decline is inevitable and part of any society possible, which is obviously ludicrous. And capitalism is an unavoidable part of any book that deals with world systems of the past three hundred years, just as feudalism is an unavoidable part of books about mediaeval Europe.

To elaborate a little on the term 'collapsist' (one which I have regularly used and heard used in discussions on topics such as peak oil and other such fantasies), it probably would be more formally expressed as 'neo-Malthusian' - although that is a word with a meaning significantly less apparent from context. Claims that the world is reaching a sudden and unavoidable tipping point, and that we are all doomed, essentially. The peak oil fans are a perfect example.

--- End quote ---

A few pages into the book, Diamond says that he's not predicting the collapse of the US.  The subtitle of the book is "How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed."  Therefore your contention, based on your non-reading of the book, that Collapse is about the inevitability of social decline is wrong.

Moreover, your use of the phrase "obviously ludicrous" in the context of a discussion that reasonable people have seen fit to take either side of for the better part of three centuries strikes is sophomoric.  Indeed, depending on your definition of what constitutes social collapse, and given the difficulty of proving a negative, taking the position that there are societies which will never collapse, which indeed will remain coherent for eons, appears ... brave.

Finally, your critique of Malthus relies on a cartoonish understanding of the man's writings which elides the real and widely recognized contributions which Malthus made to British economic and social thought.  While his theory that population would always run ahead of social production failed to anticipate the agricultural revolution, his reversed the earlier economic assumption that greater fertility would always lead to greater national wealth.  This has since become economic dogma. 

supersheep:
While this is probably now a thread for Discuss rather than here, I do feel that merits a response.

Firstly, from the very off I did say that it was on my reading of only part of the book, and those parts I read conveyed that particular message. Pointing out what I pointed out myself isn't something that deserves much praise or Argument Points(TM). I mean, it was the very first sentence I posted in this thread. But I will give you a point because I probably should read a whole book before I state it's wrong.

Sophomoric, nice. I should have known better than to use hyperbole in a discussion, as people must have told me a million times. I will hold to the statement that collapse is not an inbuilt part of society - once again, something I got from my reading. If Diamond's arguments are not along those lines then he is pretty poor at expressing himself. Maybe it was written between the lines? I've never been good at doing that - all I see between the lines are spaces.

You get another point for criticising my knowledge of Malthus - you're right, I haven't read him either, I thought that it would be pointless to read the work of someone who's been discredited by every event since he wrote and whom no sensible authorities I can find agree with. Of course, part of my definition of a sensible authority is "thinks Malthus is a load of donkey penis" so that is perhaps a rather circular piece of reasoning. You will get TWO WHOLE EXTRA POINTS if you can explain to me - preferably in cartoonish terms, because that's the only thing I understand - the relevance of Malthus' explanation that babies don't equal money to the statement that his theories about population were bunk.

PROTIP: Be more patronising next time - it's a good way of convincing people your argument is there!

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