Bookdwarf is at an event tonight with Jared Diamond, where he discusses his new book, Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed. His book is about how societies collapse and die: Rwanda, for example. Or Easter Island. When some guy chopped down the last tree on Easter Island, what was he thinking? Or that Viking settlement in Greenland which starved to death without eating any of the abundant fish in its waters. These societies chose a cultural imperative over survival. Whether it was creating giant stone statues, or sowing salt into the earth of a rival tribe, or killing all the Hutus around, or just plain refusing to compromise on the taboo against fish, they more or less chose to die.
I decided not to go to the event. I know, looking at our consumer products, that we have already chosen death.
Oooh, want to see something funny? Here are some of the top Google results for “Choose Death:”
Weird art site about death aesthetics
Anti-abortion screed
Secretly Ironic 