Publishing Guide

Upcoming Events

International | Rights, Freedoms and Repression

no events match your query!

New Events

no events posted in last week

Other Press

Rights, Freedoms and Repression

Woman whose soup run fed 250 homeless in Dublin told to cease or face €300k fine 21:35 Feb 07 2 comments

Germany cannot give up it's Nazi past - Germany orders Holocaust survivor institutionalized over Cov... 23:31 Jan 14 1 comments

Crisis in America: Deaths Up 40% Among Those Aged 18-64 Based on Life Insurance Claims for 2021 Afte... 23:16 Jan 06 0 comments

Protests over post-vaccination deaths spread across South Korea 23:18 Dec 26 0 comments

Chris Hedges: The execution of Julian Assange 22:19 Dec 19 1 comments

more >>

User Preferences

Feeds

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Lockdown Skeptics

Trump Tells Starmer: Use Military to Stop Small Boats, Drill in the North Sea and Uphold Free Speech Thu Sep 18, 2025 17:00 | Will Jones
Donald Trump?urged?Keir Starmer?to deploy the military to stop the Channel small boats crisis that is "destroying" the country, drill in the North Sea and uphold free speech at a tense joint press conference today.
The post Trump Tells Starmer: Use Military to Stop Small Boats, Drill in the North Sea and Uphold Free Speech appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Egyptian Illegal Migrant Who Raped Woman While Living in Hilton Hotel is a Convicted Islamic Terrori... Thu Sep 18, 2025 15:00 | Will Jones
An Egyptian asylum seeker who was jailed for raping a woman in?London's?Hyde Park while living in the Hilton hotel at taxpayers' expense?has been revealed to be a convicted Islamic terrorist.
The post Egyptian Illegal Migrant Who Raped Woman While Living in Hilton Hotel is a Convicted Islamic Terrorist appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

British Police Order Trump-Supporting Pensioner to Apologise for ?Upsetting? Facebook Post or Face I... Thu Sep 18, 2025 13:51 | Will Jones
British police have been accused of a "dystopian" attack on free speech after an American woman was threatened with investigation over a Facebook post and ordered to "apologise".
The post British Police Order Trump-Supporting Pensioner to Apologise for “Upsetting” Facebook Post or Face Investigation appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Jimmy Kimmel?s Show Pulled Off Air After Claiming Charlie Kirk?s Killer is From ?Maga Gang? Thu Sep 18, 2025 11:29 | Will Jones
Jimmy Kimmel's?late-night US show has been pulled after 22 years following "offensive" comments about Charlie Kirk?s death where the host repeated the falsehood that the suspected killer is from the "Maga gang".
The post Jimmy Kimmel’s Show Pulled Off Air After Claiming Charlie Kirk’s Killer is From “Maga Gang” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Trump is Forcing Mark Carney to the Right Thu Sep 18, 2025 09:00 | Dr James Allan
Back from a visit to Canada, Prof James Allan was shocked to find Liberal PM Mark Carney espousing positions on Net Zero and free speech to the Right of Australia's supposedly conservative party. It's the Trump effect.
The post Trump is Forcing Mark Carney to the Right appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network

Voltaire, international edition

Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Immorality, Journalism and Mayan Meltdown

international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Thursday June 11, 2009 09:47

by Paddy Hackett

rasherrs at eircom dot net

Report this post to the editors

Journalism and Credibility

In his article in the The Sunday Business Post David McWilliams dishonestly fails to reference a main source for his article called Moral of the Mayan Meltdown

"The Mayans simply ran out of resources. They cut down all the trees to
transport rocks from the quarries to make their ornate temples.

Competing nobility, with each chief trying to show he was the biggest, got
involved in what could only be described as an ''arms race'' to build the
most splendid palace. This involved huge amounts of labour, which were taken
from the farms and massively reduced the amount of farmers available to keep
their agriculture going.

They also cut down huge amounts of wood, causing massive soil erosion and
flooding. The mad dash to build the most ornate palace used up enormous
quantities of materials. To support this madness, the cities needed to
produce enormous amounts of food and water, and they needed to pay for it.

This was the ancient equivalent of people consuming far more than they could
afford and getting into a monumental ''keeping up with the Joneses'' battle,
which would ultimately bankrupt them. Interestingly, the Mayan currency was
devalued during all this." (Moral of the Mayan meltdown; June 7th 2009;
Sunday Business Post page 23).

A reading of Collapse by Jared Diamond will show that the above "ideas" have been borrowed from "Collapse". In my view David McWilliams should have had the honesty to reference in his The Sunday Business Post article Jared Diamond. His failure to do so, in my view, raises questions concerning the credibility of his journalism in general.

Add Your Comments >>

printable version

with comments

atom feed of comments

rss feed of comments

RSS and atom feeds allow you to keep track of new comments on particular stories. You can input the URL's from these links into a rss reader and you will be informed whenever somebody posts a new comment.

Digg this

Furl

Reddit

Gab

Twitter

save preference

Comments (1 of 1)

by Conor

publication date

Sat Jun 13, 2009 15:04

Report this post to the editors

I agree.

Add Your Comments >>

© 2001-2025 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy