Jared Diamond

Most of us take for granted the features of our modern society, from air travel and telecommunications to literacy and obesity. Yet for nearly all of its six million years of existence, human society had none of these things. While the gulf that divides us from our primitive ancestors may seem unbridgeably wide, we can glimpse much of our former lifestyle in those largely traditional societies still or recently in existence. Societies like those of the New Guinea Highlanders remind us that it was only yesterday—in evolutionary time—when everything changed and that we moderns still possess bodies and social practices often better adapted to traditional than to modern conditions.

Jared Diamond provides a mesmertizing firsthand picture of the human past as it had been for millions of years—a past that has mostly vanished—and considers what the differences between that past and our present mean for our lives today. This is Diamond's most personal speech to date, as he draws extensively from his decades of field work in the Pacific islands, as well as evidence from Inuit, Amazonian Indians, Kalahari San people, and others. He doesn't romanticize traditional societies—after all, we are shocked by some of their practices—but he finds that their solutions to unversal human problems such as child rearing, elder care, dispute resolution, risk, and physical fitness have much to teach us. A characteristically provocative, enlightening, and entertaining talk, The World Until Yesterday is essential and delightful for all audiences.

Today, in Western democracies, we take for granted the idea that all humans enjoy certain universal rights—at least in theory. Those rights include the right to vote, to receive fair justice, to be treated decently as prisoners of war, not to be enslaved, and not to suffer group-based discrimination in applying to jobs or schools. Specifically, those rights are supposed to be shared by men and women, rich and poor, young and old; all people, regardless of family connections or social role or ethnicity or religion.

Although these rights now seem natural, we forget how absurd they would have seemed throughout most of human history, and how recent their acceptance even in Western democracies has been. Why, after tens of thousands of years in which it was taken for granted that different people have different rights, should the notion have arisen, just within the last couple of centuries, that all humans share basic rights? Why should this view have arisen first in Western Europe and its overseas daughter societies, rather than somewhere else, such as in India or China or among Native Americans, Africans, or Australians? Will there be even further broadening of human rights in the near future? What about rights of older people, prisoners, animals, and poor people in the developing world?

When conditions are altered, smart business leaders adapt—they look for more efficient processes, source out new markets, or even take on a whole new strategy. But what is the appropriate response when the changes are as far-reaching and devastating as climate change, environmental degradation, and societal collapse?

In this forward-looking talk, Dr. Jared Diamond explores the state of human societies and the role that business can and should play in ensuring prosperity. One of the world's great minds and a successful non-fiction author, Diamond interweaves strands of ecology, history, anthropology, commerce, group psychology, and geography to describe our collective problems and responses.

This talk is not anti-business. It is a big-picture glimpse of the human condition from a Pulitzer Prize-winner with the scientific credentials to convey how we damage the environment, express repercussions and find solutions. Diamond's examinations of individuals and societies which, when confronted with crises or changing conditions, reappraise core values and survive, are inspirational. His examples of businesses adapting to changing circumstances while staying profitable, gaining clients, and taking the lead on environmental stewardship will enlighten you.

The ruined cities, temples, and statues of history's great, vanished societies (Easter Island, Anasazi, the Lowland Maya, Angkor Wat, Great Zimbabwe and many more) are the birthplace of endless romantic mysteries. But these disappearances offer more than idle conjecture: the social collapses were due in part to the types of environmental problems that beset us today.  

Yet many societies facing similar problems do not collapse. What makes certain societies especially vulnerable? Why didn't their leaders perceive and solve their environmental problems? What can we learn from their fates, and what can we do differently today to help us avoid their fates?

Dr. Jared Diamond's blockbuster Guns, Germs, and Steel won him a Pulitzer Prize and a place as one of the most influential thinkers of our time. His lecture of the same name takes audiences on an intellectual odyssey that challenges our assumptions about the rise and fall of civilizations. Why did Europeans and Asians conquer the indigenous peoples of Africa, the New World, Australia and the South Pacific, instead of being conquered themselves?

The answer touches on technology, genetics, genocide, zebras, pestilence, weather, geography, and luck. It also unconditionally refutes racist dogma that claims biological superiority for Eurasians. Geographical accidents, not intelligence, seem to be the reasons for Eurasia's success. Audiences will walk away with profound insights into how we got where we are and what this may mean for where we are going. Entering an intellectual maelstrom, they will be discussing and debating these ideas for months to come.

Until September 11th of 2001, we equated globalization mostly with 'us' sending 'them' our modern accomplishments: the Internet and Coca-Cola. Now, we are painfully aware of the unpredictable and reciprocal nature of global contact: AIDS, terrorism, unstoppable illegal immigration and diabetes epidemics. What will globalization really bring the world, and how can we minimize its negative impact while continuing to benefit from the advantages of shared cultures and resources?

Globalization means that remote societies can no longer collapse without influencing the rest of the world (as with Easter Island and the Anasazi societies of many centuries ago). We are the first society in history who have the chance to develop using a comprehensive, contemporary and historical understanding of our collective path.