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I don't analyze what I'm doing. I've read convincing interpretations of my work, and sometimes I've noticed something that I wasn't aware of, but I think, at this point, people read into my work out of habit. Or I'm just very, very smart.

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Jared Diamond

We study the injustices of history for the same reason that we study genocide, and for the same reason that psychologists study the minds of murderers and rapists. . . to understand how those evil things came about.

Evil, History, Literature, Mind, Same
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The metaphor is so obvious. Easter Island isolated in the Pacific Ocean — once the island got into trouble, there was no way they could get free. There was no other people from whom they could get help. In the same way that we on Planet Earth, if we ruin our own [world], we won't be able to get help.

Easter, Islands, Obvious, Ocean, Way

History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.

Complicated, Consistency, Enterprise, History, Simplicity

The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.

Adoption, Agriculture, Life, Recovered, Toward, Way

Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.

Food, Population, Production, Starvation, Trying, Warfare

Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping the outcomes [of the various societies' histories] towards success or failure: long-term planning and willingness to reconsider core values. On reflection we can also recognize the crucial role of these same two choices for the outcomes of our individual lives.

Core, Long, Planning, Reflection, Role, Two
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