Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions

In the article “Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions” the author, Jared Diamond, discusses the reason why a society might make a decision to put themselves in jeopardy. He explains that this problem occurs because people are very bad at making group decisions. According to Diamond groups make bad decisions because they do not anticipate problems before they happen. Even with prior experience, it does not mean that the society will successfully stop the problem before it occurs. Sometimes societies rely on false analogies to help them solve problems. Another problem that Diamond feels is a reason why societies make poor decisions is that they anticipate a failure to perceive a problem before it actually arrives. The last problem that the author mentions is that some societies fail to do anything about a problem even once it is perceived. Like Diamond said, this is definitely the most surprising reason. I think that this essay was actually pretty interesting. I think the author organized the article very well. After he would make a point he always was sure to give several examples to help describe what he was talking about. I think that without the examples then the article would probably be very dry and a bit confusing. This article actually makes the reader think what it is like to work in a large group and makes you want to fix the problems