
Interview with Jared Diamond [video] - dnetesn
https://vimeo.com/72741207
======
duaneb
Jared Diamond may be a celebrated author, but he's a terrible scientist. His
"Guns, Germs, and Steel" carefully selects evidence supporting his geo-
determinism theory. He was partially right—a civilization's resources have
immense impact on the future—but the effects he's talking of are far, far too
large to be supported in any serious way by archaeological and historical
evidence. It's like pretending to teach macro-economics, but really teaching
Marx.

He seems to have drawn very far fetched conclusions from vague anthropological
and archeological signals. I fear greatly for those who listen to his
hypotheses about the present.

~~~
mark212
Well, his hypotheses about the present are pretty banal: if we continue on
present trends, we're in for some tough times. He cites over-fishing as an
example.

But of course we aren't strictly following those trends (interview is from
mid-2013) particularly with respect to oil. Anybody remember "Peak Oil" and
how we were supposed to be on a straight downward slope for supplies? Now the
received wisdom is that we'll have a glut of supply stretching into the far
future.

This isn't meant as a knock on either Dr. Diamond or on duaneb, just that his
conclusions are pretty general and roundish. I find them provocative and
appreciate the perspective.

~~~
icc97
He didn't actually mention oil. It was only the following (at 3:26 in the
video):

\- Fresh water

\- Fisheries

\- Forests

\- Top soil

Top soil is certainly one I rarely hear mentioned. Beyond that the other three
though banal are the most important so what else is he supposed to say?

There's a lot of news and Elon Musk / Solar is doing very well at trying to
get people to move off oil. But I don't hear of anyone near the same scale
doing things to to solve the Fisheries / Forests / Water problems.

~~~
trhway
Fisheries - looking at Norway coast i think we'll be able to scale fish
farming to feed even 50B Earth population.

Forests - well, too bad for them (and for us)

Water - once it priced more correctly, like with oil/gas (we still have many
socialized externalities even there of course), market machinery will start to
pickup bringing up more efficient use as well as various projects to
efficiently produce and geographically redistribute water (like moving the
record snow from Boston to the record drought striken CA :)

------
jessaustin
Warning: only the questions are transcribed. The answers are apparently in an
embedded video.

~~~
mark212
Here's the URL for the video itself

[https://vimeo.com/72741207](https://vimeo.com/72741207)

~~~
dang
Thanks. We changed the URL to that from [http://nautil.us/issue/4/the-
unlikely/what-ive-learned-about...](http://nautil.us/issue/4/the-
unlikely/what-ive-learned-about-the-past-13000-years).

------
clamprecht
What's the HN consensus on nautil.us - does it have good content or is it just
buzzfeed for nerds?

~~~
pauldw
I think many publications are "BuzzFeed for (x)". For example, here are two
articles about sandwiches:

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/14/dining/field-g...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/14/dining/field-
guide-to-the-sandwich.html)

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/kaylayandoli/all-anyone-really-
wants...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/kaylayandoli/all-anyone-really-wants-in-
life-is-to-sit-in-peace-and-eat-a)

