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- I listened to the New South Wales Country Hour on and off for a couple of months while walking down New York City sidewalks, up subway stairs, and riding office building elevators. The show has recently updated its theme music, and retired the cows and the ewes. But while the segments about competitive plowing and the difficulties inherent in playing cricket in the bush (“watch out for the odd sheep carcass”) are, perhaps, difficult to relate to, this radio show for Australian farmers is essential listening for people who want to understand what happens when the ecological balance starts to tip.
Jared Diamond arranges Collapse around three societies, basically:
- Rapa Nui, which is a stand-in for primitive cultures that ran afoul of limited resources,
- Greenland, which is a stand-in for medieval cultures that ran afoul of limited resources, and
- Australia, which was fucked from the get-go and has demonstrated for 150 years the futility of attempting to make land do what it doesn't want to do.