To science we owe dramatic changes in our smug self-image. Astronomy taught us that our earth isn’t the center of the universe but merely one of billions of heavenly bodies. From biology we learned that we weren’t specially created by God but evolved along with millions of other species. Now archaeology is demolishing another sacred belief: that human history over the past million years has been a long tale of progress. In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence.
At first, the evidence against this revisionist interpretation will strike twentieth century Americans as irrefutable. We’re better off in almost every respect than people of the Middle Ages, who in turn had it easier than cavemen, who in turn were better off than apes. Just count our advantages. We enjoy the most abundant and varied foods, the best tools and material goods, some of the longest and healthiest lives, in history. Most of us are safe from starvation and predators. We get our energy from oil and machines, not from our sweat. What neo-Luddite among us would trade his life for that of a medieval peasant, a caveman, or an ape?
...
This is an old article by Jared Diamond from 1987 but it's a good one.
Wouldn't it be something if the human race returned, a couple of hundred years after the crash, to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle - not out of dire necessity and desperate want - but because it will be determined that it is the most healthy, pleasant and rewarding one available to an advanced race of wise, capable, evolved sentient beings?
I've always thought that the adoption of agriculture was probably forced on people through an increase of population combined with a scarcity of natural resources brought on by over-utilization. Competition with neighboring/relocating tribes would have necessitated a partial dependence on crops at first, increasing as time went on and as the natural world grew increasingly distant from the tribal homeland.
Primitive peoples likely changed the landscapes of prehistoric Greece and Italy from lush forests to the sparse, rocky territories they are now.
Joined: May 02, 2005 Posts: 3277 Location: at the convention
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 5:26 am Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
meh...
Placing the start of the Fark at the beginning of agriculture doesn't work. It goes back further than that.
The shift to agriculture did indeed change the scene and was significant step in the process, but it pales in comparison to the easy energy boom. _________________ "Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events."
Robert A. Heinlein
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 6:34 am Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
Agriculture is nearly 12,000 years old. What easy energy source was available before then? Wood? I don't see how that would have changed the landscape drastically like oil or even coal did. _________________ I want to put out the fires of Hell, and burn down the rewards of Paradise. They block the way to God. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God. - Rabia
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 7:01 am Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
Carlhole wrote:
... Wouldn't it be something if the human race returned, a couple of hundred years after the crash, to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle - not out of dire necessity and desperate want - but because it will be determined that it is the most healthy, pleasant and rewarding one available...
aren't we to many on this little rock of ours, circling the sun, for this to work? _________________ I am a sarcastic cynic. Some say I'm an asshole. Now that we have that out of the way ...
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 12022 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 7:26 am Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
mekrob wrote:
Agriculture is nearly 12,000 years old. What easy energy source was available before then? Wood? I don't see how that would have changed the landscape drastically like oil or even coal did.
The landscape is damaged by clearing (deforestation) and by ploughing. Growing plants for food is not in itself damaging, in fact, many peoples grew plants for food without substantially damaging their landscape. In anthropology this benign kind of food growing is often referred to as "horticulture" The modern version is Permaculture, which incorporates growing food plants with the rest of human settlement in a way which is benign to the landscape (or may even restore it).
Pastoralism ( grazing meat or dairy animals) can also be extremely damaging to the landscape by stripping it of vegetation, especially trees. This damages the watershed, causing desertification. This can be seen in many parts of the Middle East, Mediterranean, and North Africa. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow..." - jboogy
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 7:27 am Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
Lighthouse wrote:
Carlhole wrote:
... Wouldn't it be something if the human race returned, a couple of hundred years after the crash, to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle - not out of dire necessity and desperate want - but because it will be determined that it is the most healthy, pleasant and rewarding one available...
aren't we to many on this little rock of ours, circling the sun, for this to work?
We definitely ARE too many on this little rock... ...now.
I was musing about the irony of a return to a hunter-gatherer mode...
That Mankind, greatly reduced "after the crash", had further evolved and become wizened after the great death and horrible lesson. Perhaps becoming once again a hunter-gatherer society but with a rememberance of fabulous technology and possession of much knowledge.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 12022 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 7:32 am Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
Hunter gatherers as individuals possessed as much or more knowledge as modern individuals, as all their knowledge was remembered, not written. They couldn't check their facts in books, and mistakes could be deadly.
I can't personally identify and list the uses of 300 plants in my locale, yet that sort of knowledge was common to hunter-gatherers. I have to refer to books. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow..." - jboogy
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 7:37 am Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
i think shopping at the mall is a modern day equivalent
of hunting.
occasionally i have a "hunter-gatherer" meal. walnuts
from a tree 200 yards away, apples from a tree 5 miles
away. it's pretty good. _________________ http://www.LASIKdecision.com/ ~ Health Warning about LASIK Eye Surgery
Last edited by pedalling_faster on Sat Nov 17, 2007 2:51 pm; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 9:07 am Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
We are like lottery winners just flaring off all the excess cash in a massive gambling and alcoholic binge.
It's great fun and going to be one massive hangover. _________________ "Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box."
-Italian Proverb
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:30 am Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
Coming out of the ice age, a geographical lottery determined where on earth the land and weather would lend itself for agriculture and the start of civilization located somewhere in the middle east in a region the US is raping at the present time.
I don't know if agriculture was the worst mistake in the history of human race.When
few hands can feed many, That gives a lot of time for some to plan for bigger aspirations like subjugating, enslaving, creating underclasses, making war, making stupid laws etc, on the other hand civilization resulted in great art, litterature, architecture and rock and roll, a world with out Little Richard would be pretty dull.
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:41 am Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
Ludi wrote:
Hunter gatherers as individuals possessed as much or more knowledge as modern individuals, as all their knowledge was remembered, not written. They couldn't check their facts in books, and mistakes could be deadly.
I can't personally identify and list the uses of 300 plants in my locale, yet that sort of knowledge was common to hunter-gatherers. I have to refer to books.
In Richard Manning's fantastic "Against the Grain" he says this need to identify plants it the primary reason for our big brains.... it's a beautiful and sad book, if you haven't read it.
Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 3131 Location: Boston Suburbs
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 4:04 pm Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
I really don't things were universally better back then. Sustainable, yes. But not better for the average individual. What was the life expectancy of a hunter-gatherer? 25 years? What was the state of medicine? Witch doctors and herbs will only get you so far.
The problem isn't agriculture. It's population growth. With a small human population, agriculture could be refined (rotation farming) in a way not to permanently deplete the soil. CO2 emissions and other pollution would be low level enough to just kind of fizzle into the background of the surroundings.
Joined: May 14, 2005 Posts: 2125 Location: Along the banks of the muddy Mississippi
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 5:01 pm Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
mos6507 wrote:
I really don't things were universally better back then. Sustainable, yes. But not better for the average individual. What was the life expectancy of a hunter-gatherer? 25 years? What was the state of medicine? Witch doctors and herbs will only get you so far.
Since you obviously didn't read the link that Carlhole posted, I will post the relevant portions of it here for you.
Jared Diamond wrote:
Usually the only human remains available for study are skeletons, but they permit a surprising number of deductions. To begin with, a skeleton reveals its owner’s sex, weight, and approximate age. In the few cases where there are many skeletons, one can construct mortality tables like the ones life insurance companies use to calculate expected life span and risk of death at any given age. Paleopathologists can also calculate growth rates by measuring bones of people of different ages, examine teeth for enamel defects (signs of childhood malnutrition), and recognize scars left on bones by anemia, tuberculosis, leprosy, and other diseases.
One straight forward example of what paleopathologists have learned from skeletons concerns historical changes in height. Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunter-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5′ 9″ for men, 5′ 5″ for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B.C. had reached a low of only 5′ 3″ for men, 5′ for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors.
Another example of paleopathology at work is the study of Indian skeletons from burial mounds in the Illinois and Ohio river valleys. At Dickson Mounds, located near the confluence of the Spoon and Illinois rivers, archaeologists have excavated some 800 skeletons that paint a picture of the health changes that occurred when a hunter-gatherer culture gave way to intensive maize farming around A.D. 1150. Studies by George Armelagos and his colleagues then at the University of Massachusetts show these early farmers paid a price for their new-found livelihood. Compared to the hunter-gatherers who preceded them, the farmers had a nearly 50 percent increase in [tooth] enamel defects indicative of malnutrition, a fourfold increase in iron-deficiency anemia (evidenced by a bone condition called porotic hyperostosis), a threefold rise in bone lesions reflecting infectious disease in general, and an increase in degenerative conditions of the spine, probably reflecting a lot of hard physical labor. “Life expectancy at birth in the pre-agricultural community was about twenty-six years,” says Armelagos, “but in the post-agricultural community it was nineteen years. So these episodes of nutritional stress and infectious disease were seriously affecting their ability to survive.
Humans were healthier before agriculture.
I agree with you, however, that population growth is a major problem. _________________ “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.” (Ted Perry)
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 7:11 pm Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
Quote:
mekrob wrote:
Agriculture is nearly 12,000 years old. What easy energy source was available before then? Wood? I don't see how that would have changed the landscape drastically like oil or even coal did.
The landscape is damaged by clearing (deforestation) and by ploughing.
Read my quote in context. I wasn't talking about the actual landscape of the Earth but the landscape or situation of the energy paradigm and how, apparently wood, Fark it all up for mankind. I do see how you made that mistake and you aren't the first to mess up what I've written.
As for what this thread is about, paleontology and anthropology and the like, I think I'll sit this one out and just enjoy the reading. _________________ I want to put out the fires of Hell, and burn down the rewards of Paradise. They block the way to God. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God. - Rabia
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 9:55 pm Post subject: Re: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
mos6507 wrote:
I really don't things were universally better back then. Sustainable, yes. But not better for the average individual. What was the life expectancy of a hunter-gatherer? 25 years? What was the state of medicine? Witch doctors and herbs will only get you so far.
The problem isn't agriculture. It's population growth. With a small human population, agriculture could be refined (rotation farming) in a way not to permanently deplete the soil. CO2 emissions and other pollution would be low level enough to just kind of fizzle into the background of the surroundings.
i don't know... there's not really a "the" problem. everything is a tradeoff, agriculture, oil. you can talk about these tradeoffs without taking a simplistic pro this anti that position.
the 100 years of unsustainable luxury in the lap of oil has been pretty nice in alot of ways. but oh the tradeoff.
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