Take Home Assignment
Question 4:

“Specialization can bring short-term rewards, but can lead, in the long run, to an evolutionary dead end” (Wright, 28). The end of a civilization and the end of a company or business are drastically different measures, but similarities can be made in history patterns as to why a civilization or business might come to an end. The Enron collapse and other civilizations such as Easter Island and the Sumerians show these patterns which caused a “dead end” for both. While the details of history never repeat themselves, the patterns of history do — with alarming regularity. The circumstances only seem new because they arrive in different wrappers. But the contents are the same. The same human character repeats the same behaviour, creating the same problems and stresses that we respond to with an old familiarity. There is a pattern in the past of civilization after civilization wearing out its welcome from nature, overexploiting its environment, over expanding, overpopulating. They tend to collapse quite soon after they reach their period of greatest magnificence and prosperity. Ronald Wright’s book A short history of progress explains civilizations such as the romans, Sumerians, and most notably Easter island that came to a collapse. Easter Island was a smaller society that eventually came to an end by exploiting resources that benefitted them in the short run rather than the long. This is what wright explained in the book to be a “progress trap”. “Progress trap is when human ingenuity, in pursuing progress, introduces a problem(s) that it does not have the resources or imagination to solve, preventing further progress.” Here is where a similarity between the huge 62 billion dollar company Enron and civilization Easter Island come into play. Both Enron and Easter Island both ran into a problem that they did not have the resources