Many of our problems are broadly similar to those that undermined ... Norse Greenland, and that many other past societies also struggled to solve. Some of those past societies failed (like the Greenland Norse) and others succeeded ... The past offers us a rich database from which we can learn in order that we may keep on succeeding. Jared Diamond
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In a 1944 lecture. At the time, he was a professor of American history at Harvard, but had been awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics in ... 1944. In that lecture, he described the history of the "Norse" from their colonization of Greenland to their demise.

He went on to talk about elements of the "Norse" society that were similar to our own and how he believed we could learn from them. He discussed how they managed to survive in an environment that many other societies failed in. They discovered techniques for dealing with cold climates and how they dealt with harsh weather.

He also talked about "Settlement by Invitation". This is similar to what we know as "No Fault Torts" or "Wrongful Death." This is when someone dies due to someone else's negligence that results in another person's death. The people who live nearby are expected to invite these people into their homes which can help prevent these kinds of things from happening again.

Source: Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed

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  1. It would be a mistake, though, to consider care by family doctors or midwives inferior to that offered by obstetricians simply on the grounds that obstetricians need not refer care to a family physician or midwife if no complications develop during a course of labor.
  2. Why should insurance companies continue to get away with limiting the skills that a health profession has always previously required of its members if they were to be considered fully trained?
  3. Many of our problems in US maternity care stem from the fact that we leave no room for recognizing when nature is smarter than we are.
  4. The way a culture treats women in birth is a good indicator of how well women and their contributions to society are valued and honored.
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