Blå skärm means “blue screen” in Swedish. This name is inspired by the response that users of an early version of Windows got when the operating system crashed. Then most often the only way to solve the problem was to reboot the computer.
The analogy with our civilization, driving more and more towards its collapse if it does not awake to its deeply rooted problems, is straightforward. Computers were a crucial driver in the acceleration of scientific and economic progress during the XXth century, and could be a cause -as well as a solution- of a sudden collapse. The one playing with us would soon see his screen frozen, followed by an irreversible blue screen that no one could do anything against.
Hopefully, a thorough understanding of the reasons behind the appearance of these errors has led the developers to fix them on time. This is what this blog is aiming at. It will expose and discuss issues related to environment, social unequities and development, that our civilization quietly witnesses without really dealing with them effectively.
Because we want these screens never to show up again. Because we think that awaking people on these issues might lead them to think about them and act together. By exchanging ideas and concerns from all over the world through articles coming from different contributors, it will help readers to get a holistic understanding of worldwide issues, and ways to solve them.
When I first read about this blog I was stunned. Not because the topic or the posts were shocking, but because it immediately reminded me of a very interesting book that I had read several months ago…
In the book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive” the American professor for geography and anthropology and Pulitzer-Price winner, Jared Diamond, follows the question what reasons caused the collapse of historic and modern societies. He described five main factors for the failure of historic societies, which are: 1) Climate changes, 2) Self-inflicted ecological devastation, 3) Hostile neighbouring societies, 4) Declining support from friendly neighbours, 5) Wrong answers and decisions on severe problems of the society.
By analysing societies like the Vikings on Greenland and Iceland, the Polynesians on Easter Island, Inca Empire in South America and several other vanished cultures and societies the author thoroughly discusses the reasons why those societies failed or sometimes succeeded to anticipate and response to changing environmental conditions. He stresses the ecological conditions because those societies and their well-being depended almost completely on fishery or agriculture.
As examples for modern societies the author chose Ruanda, the Dominican Republic and its neighbour Haiti, China and Australia, which have been facing different ecological problems or limitations.
In the end of his book he identifies certain patterns that can explain why societies fail or prevail when they struggle to survive. He also addresses the role of corporations in modern societies and which positive or negative impact they can have.
It is impossible to renarrate a book of almost 600 pages in a few paragraphs and to present all its wise conclusions. It was captivating to follow the author’s analyses about the different societies of the past and present, and finally confronting all that with today’s concepts of rational/irrational behaviour, game theory (prisoner’s dilemma) amongst others.
Having talked about this book (and recommending you to read it) I hope that within this blog we will be able to identify problems and issues of a potential upcoming world-wide collapse, to find reasons for a lack of foresight, perception and response to such global problems, and to discuss ideas and ways how we can “choose to survive”.
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
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