Adaptive Failure: Easter's End

A detailed Summary of Adaptive Failure: Easter's End

Culture has many characteristics, which include that fact that it is shared and social, it is learned, it is used creatively, etc. The characteristic that is highlighted in this reading is that culture is adaptive and maladaptive. The adaptability of culture enables its people to make changes to allow them to thrive. But every culture participates in some activities that are counterproductive to its survival. Smoking is a minor example of a counterproductive behavior that exists in the world today. But the people of Easter Island had to contend with a much more serious issue: over-exploitation of resources.

The general consensus is that Easter Island was first habited around AD 400. When early settlers arrived, they likely found a heavily forested and fertile land abundant in food and other resources. It was a miniature paradise. But such was not the case when Dutch explorer, Jacob Roggeveen, arrived in 1722. By then, Easter Island appeared to be nothing more than a wasteland. The flora consisted of o

Using just stone tools and muscle power, the Easter Islanders managed to devastate their entire environment thus undermining any technological and social advances they made. We, on the other hand, have metal tools and large machinery to help us to destroy ourselves. The sad thing is that we have documented accounts of such societies as the Easter Islanders who developed themselves into near extinction, yet we continue to build Wal-Mart Supercenters and ridiculously huge shopping malls at the expense of our forests. Why didn't they look around, realize what was going on and stop it before it was too late? What were they thinking when they chopped down the last palm tree?" (Conformity 131). These questions may seem obvious to us when thinking about the people of the Easter Islands, but why don't we apply them to ourselves? Don't we realize that we are exhausting our natural resources so quickly that we may end up with the same fate as the Easter Islanders? If we continue down this same path, our civilization

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Approximate Word count = 686
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: People

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