AC,

Very little of what you wrote about the Easter Islanders is actually correct:

1. They didn't "get caught in an ocean current and eventually get marooned". They were Polynesian and among the best open ocean navigators of all time. They colonised the island just as they colonised most of the Pacific.
2. They didn't "go far out from the island to fish". The seas around Easter Island are like a desert with very little life. The original European visitors were surprised that the locals had almost no seafood in their diet.Consequently, since they wern't fishing, after a few generations they lost their sea-faring skills.
3. There might have been a civil war but not over resources but over religion. But its speculative.
4. As Aidan says, they population was destroyed by slavers and disease.
5. When Europeans arrived, the island was still heavily timbered.

This myth of the population destroying its environment was just too good to pass up, so the facts were 'massaged'. Its been used by Jared Diamond and others to further an agenda, not to further knowledge. People will probably still be spreading the myth 50 years hence because it suits the agenda

mhaze,
I hadn't heard claim 5 before. What's the source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Camp_of_the_Saints

This link leads to some incredibly sobering reading
when the teeming billions of the so-called Third World - driven by unbearable hunger and despair, the inevitable consequences of insensate over-population - descend locust-like on the lush lands of the complacent white nations?

Hey mhaze,
I wish I could find the documentary again but it was a long time ago.
But I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong though, as for all things in history;
'I dunno, I wasn't there'.
It was a fairly in depth documentary thouhh, spoke of their God (a bird god if I remember correctly with some weird name) and of their society and traditions, and even spoke of the species of timber that were on the island in question.

Each of us can be wrong some times are, my memory tells me Easter Island had no trees and few people on its entry in to our eye sight,and while speculation has many views never saw over population as the reason it was so.however do we think the answer to over population, if we do think such a thing can exist is stuffing more of us in to some country's?

Aiden - I got banned for 24 hours but I will get back to you soon and will try to give a good reply to your comments on Malthusian question. In the meantime read the following for background.

http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/population/malthusian-theory-of-population-criticisms-and-applicability/10885

I think that my comments were provoked by commenters focusing on supply side solutions rather than the demand side - demand side solutions tend to be simpler.

Also contraception only works in cultures that use it. In 2003 India had 50% of the population under the age of 15. Now the Indian Prime Minister is negotiating with the Australian Government to bring more students or migrants or workers to Australia. India still has a birth rate above the replacement rate - but has come a long way - some say we should give points for effort - some say it's hard to take responsibility - we've done it. The reason why Australians are having less children, the ALT community believe, is because they believe there are too many people. Like a chemical buffer changes to the solution are self correcting.

But in all this the Australian culture is being diluted - some believe that the Australian culture (and all cultures) are important. Australian culture didn't create this population problem in Indian culture - why should Australians have to pay for it.

Multiculturalism will be at least as ethnocentric as Nazism in the long term - and will probably cause as much pain