I too was cautiously optimistic when I read Collapse and consequently watched the presentation. The presentation (and book) gives a number of significant points that are pretty much common sense. There is nothing that’s astonishingly novel in terms of points raised regarding the past and potential future scenarios. However, the presentation itself was done very well encompassing both the pessimistic and optimistic sides to the argument hence held my interest till the end. All in all, it is quite motivational and well thought out!

This could have been a very interesting topic. But from the beginning to the end, it is ceaselessly boring. There's not a new thing I've learned, just a rehash of environmentalism.

Since this is all about the collapse of society from a lack of resources, the fact is, our access to resources has increased by magnitudes since the caveman and the human population is able to thrive in this new environment. In the Ultimate Resource, the economist Julian Simon showed how human creativity is the key to creating new resources, and that since human creativity is unlimited, our access to resources is ultimately unlimited.

Thus, our need to be fixated on the boogie man of global warming, global cooling, and other manufactured threats just won't pan out. To be so undermines our efforts to live and enjoy life.

Diamond doesn't come out against socialism and big government and that is why our elites are so "insulated" from the world.

Unlike the Easter Islanders and others, we are not isolationists. We trade with the whole world and our resources come from the whole world. Diamond's ideas, and Al Gore's for that matter, make for a B horror movie, but we all know Jason and Freddie Krueger don't exist.

http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TINTRO.txt

I thought Jared Diamond's presentation was well organized and presented in an easy to understand manner. I liked the way he personalized the examples. Thanks to UCSB for making this lecture available over the Internet.