Collapse?

Hola kiddos. Today I went to the Los Angeles Natural History Museum with Steve and my friend Nick to check out the new exhibit entitled Collapse?. This exhibit was inspired by Jared Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed, and was touted by the museum as being a "rich, multi-sensory experience with contemporary themes". Intriguing, yes! However by multi-sensory they meant bright and shiny with virtually no content. Imagine cartoon orange gumdrops with smiley faces and hatchets attacking green gumdrops. You see, this represents not getting along with your neighbors. Nick searched in vain for the 'smart button', crying out "I'm a knowledge sponge! Fill me up!" Poor Nick. But we did learn some things:
* Shoguns in Japan established successful forest management and today the country is 80% forested
* The Mayans: too many toys, not enough food
* Southern California has a population of 24 million people, but without imported water could only support 1 million.
* There is good fishing on the Bitterroot River in Montana

Final verdict: I will have to read the book to have any sort of inkling as to why civilizations collapse. (Nick, can I borrow it when you're done?)