If there is one lesson to learn from reading collapse is that the past has something to teach us. Diamond has an agenda and I believe his agenda is that "History can inform policy">

I.e. if we study history carefully, it can (and should) influence the decisions we make today.

Diamond's technique can be summed up as follows:

1. Study the past
2. Make hypothesis about why things happened
3. Perform experiments (mostly comparative studies)
4. Refine hypothesis so that accounts for things you might not firat have anticipated.
5. Use validated hypothesis to inform policy.

How can we applying Collapse ideas to our own lives?

• Which example of civilizational collapse described in the book do you find most compelling and why? Which best fits Diamond’s thesis? Diamond notes that "no other site that I have visited made such a ghostly impression on me as Rano Raraku, the quarry on Easter Island" (p. 79). Which image or passage in the book made the most powerful impression on you?
  
  
  
• There is a lot of talk these days about how environmentalists have damaged their credibility by crying wolf -- for example, issuing dire warnings about exploding population and the effects of global warming that have not been borne out. Do you think Diamond is vulnerable to the charge of crying wolf in Collapse? If not, why not? How does his argument and approach differ from alarmist environmentalists?
  
  
  
• Diamond describes Tikopia as a kind of island paradise where natives saved their environment through eco-friendly gardening and devised a kind of rudimentary democratic system of government. Yet Tikopians also practiced infanticide and abortion to limit population growth. What does this say about our ability to judge the morality of past societies? Can one (must one?) differentiate between macro- and micro-morality?
  
  
  
• Diamond writes that our world "cannot sustain China and other Third World countries and current First World countries all operating at First World levels" (p. 376). Yet how can we ethically deny Third World countries the comforts and advantages that we in the First World enjoy? In your opinion, what should our leaders do to lessen or resolve looming conflicts over resources between First and Third World countries?
  
  
  
• If the United States does collapse, how do you think it will happen? Which of Diamond’s five factors would play a role in the demise of American civilization as we know it? Do you think our collapse will occur suddenly, like the crash of Easter Island or Maya civilization, or is it more likely that we’ll experience a gradual but stable decline, as Great Britain did after World War II?
  
  
  
• Diamond reveals that while writing the book he found himself lurching between hope and despair. What emotions did Collapse inspire in you? Did you come away depressed, cautiously hopeful, or did you have an entirely different reaction?
  
  
  

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