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The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race?

The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race?

  • Hunting and gathering

    Votes: 2 40.0%
  • Agriculture

    Votes: 3 60.0%

  • Total voters
    5
At this particular point in time, even going back 50 years would require its own transitional Dark Age. We are in a global economic and demographic conundrum of a situation that does not allow for even the slightest reversion.

On an individual level we can try to implement more methods for living as we did a long time ago. Bring back some old homesteading methods, for example. Returning to some aspects of this lifestyle has never been more crucial to our ecosystems or our sense of control over our livelihoods, but it's also never seemed more distant/foreign to us. It is particularly shunned by those who seek perpetual growth and prosperity and will use new financial magic tricks to fake it.

The old homesteading methods are extremely costly in today's world Have you checked the price of land lately? Further, few of us are really willing to go back to working from dawn to dusk just to keep food on the table, living without electricity, let alone the internet. No, going back isn't going to be an option for most of us.
 
I recently read an article that i found quite fascinating as well as debatable. The article is titled The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race and is written by Jared Diamond. You can read the full article here The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race but in a nutshell Diamond is arguing that agriculture spurned a series of shifts in human society that negatively affected our health, happiness, and harmony.

I'm torn by anti-agriculturalism. On the one hand, the evidence is pretty clear that the products of agriculture-- refined grains, vegetable oils, and processed foods-- are the main causes of heart disease, diabetes, and the other "diseases of civilization." In addition, the surpluses of food created by agriculture enabled the creation of social hierarchy, empire, slavery, and the other products of economic power.

On the other hand, without those agricultural surpluses, we would have no significant trade, no means to exploit comparative advantage, no real opportunity for economic development. Earth would be populated by tiny groups of hunter-gatherers, without tall cities, laboratories, libraries, airplanes or space shuttles. Our consciousness would be of families and local communities, without a sense of being part of a greater race or planet.

In conclusion i ask you, which world would be better? Hunting and gathering or the agricultural route, and why do you pick one over the other?

I think this is another "golden age" fallacy. While it is certainly true that there has been a cost to agricultural society, life wasn't so pretty back then either. Your life expectancy would be below 30 and you had a better chance than not of dying at the hands of another human due to resource competition.

The problems posed by agriculture are significantly more complex, and I don't think we take them seriously enough as a species. We are certainly capable of causing a lot more damage with agriculture than we ever could with hunter-gatherer, and we have. The Depression was essentially caused by environmental crisis that resulted from stupid methods of agriculture. And since then, we still haven't entirely addressed those issues; just reduced them a bit to buy us some time. We're running a bit low on time.

But in terms of human quality of life, there is no question agriculture made it vastly better, the better we got at it. Yeah, it's given rise to some problems too, but is it or is it not true that you have a life expectancy of 80, you're able to spend most of that time developing yourself however you want, and you're very unlikely to be killed on the street? On the whole, more humans have it better than they ever have at any point in the past. Some still live in terrible conditions, but the trend is up all across the board.

This is a bit like that old fallacy that things were better before legal divorce - that couples were happier, children lived in better homes, and people didn't split up. None of that is true. Separation was common, abusive homes were EXTREMELY common, and whatever slight advantage their may have been was only because people died 2 or 3 decades sooner than they do now.

Those "good old days" weren't so great, and neither were the hunter-gatherer "good old days."
 
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I just find it interesting that we use the term Human Race when we actually we are considering the Human species.
If the term 'race' was not used to indicate skin color etc. it would be easier for me to use the term Human Race.
 
Probably not, and yet we have people who seem to want to go back to that time.

Are you referring to Goths? Or perhaps the Society for Creative Anachronism? Such things are amusing and entertaining. But plant such dreamers in the real conditions of pestilence, disease, toil, and summary executions and they will abruptly cease their glorification. What they do is an entertaining hobby. But any true student of history wouldn't go back to it for nuthin'!
 
Are you referring to Goths? Or perhaps the Society for Creative Anachronism? Such things are amusing and entertaining. But plant such dreamers in the real conditions of pestilence, disease, toil, and summary executions and they will abruptly cease their glorification. What they do is an entertaining hobby. But any true student of history wouldn't go back to it for nuthin'!

Oh, I totally agree. I wouldn't want to go back to the middle ages for anything. The groups you mention are interesting, if a little bit wacky. There are also people who seem to think that anything from the past is better and that the word is headed for catastrophe, would want to go off and live in their own little enclave, grow their own food, be rugged individualists, divorce themselves from the modern world. All that is totally unrealistic, of course.
 
Oh, I totally agree. I wouldn't want to go back to the middle ages for anything. The groups you mention are interesting, if a little bit wacky. There are also people who seem to think that anything from the past is better and that the word is headed for catastrophe, would want to go off and live in their own little enclave, grow their own food, be rugged individualists, divorce themselves from the modern world. All that is totally unrealistic, of course.

I enjoy a good steampunk novel as much as the next person, but a lot of people seem to forget this sort of thing is fantasy (in more ways than just the artistic licensing with the technology).

In reality, people were too busy dying of syphilis or being publicly whipped to admire the aesthetics of steam engines. And that's just 150 years ago. The further back you go, the uglier it gets. By the time you get back to hunter-gatherer societies, you would be killed or starve to death so fast that you wouldn't even have time to die of syphilis.

Humans are less violent, more productive, happier, better educated, more free, and less diseased than ever before.
 
Oh, I totally agree. I wouldn't want to go back to the middle ages for anything. The groups you mention are interesting, if a little bit wacky. There are also people who seem to think that anything from the past is better and that the word is headed for catastrophe, would want to go off and live in their own little enclave, grow their own food, be rugged individualists, divorce themselves from the modern world. All that is totally unrealistic, of course.

The Amish did it. That said, there's no ****ing way in hell I'd ever choose that kind of life. Ruggedness is for the weekends, when there's actual time to shoot stuff, light a bonfire, and grill.
 
The old homesteading methods are extremely costly in today's world Have you checked the price of land lately? Further, few of us are really willing to go back to working from dawn to dusk just to keep food on the table, living without electricity, let alone the internet. No, going back isn't going to be an option for most of us.

In the absence of other options, it becomes the only remaining option. Converting overnight to a full time homesteader would involve substantial investments that most people who would most benefit from it are not prepared to immediately make. But the real issue is your second point, which is that people aren't willing to even think about that transition, much less start working toward it. It's not that it isn't an option, it's that people don't have the motivation to consider or pursue it.
 
The Amish did it. That said, there's no ****ing way in hell I'd ever choose that kind of life. Ruggedness is for the weekends, when there's actual time to shoot stuff, light a bonfire, and grill.

The more pessimistic your long-term global economic outlook, the more appealing the upsides of a poorer but more self-sufficient lifestyle become. It's basically a bet on collapse. If you believe debt doesn't really matter anymore and have faith we'll collectively "figure something out when the time comes," you probably will have no motivation to consider that lifestyle, and should invest in a specialized education for yourself and be heavy and long on stocks. If you think we're completely ****ed, you're more likely to see genius in doomsday preparedness, homesteading and voluntarily meager lifestyles.
 
Oh, I totally agree. I wouldn't want to go back to the middle ages for anything. The groups you mention are interesting, if a little bit wacky. There are also people who seem to think that anything from the past is better and that the word is headed for catastrophe, would want to go off and live in their own little enclave, grow their own food, be rugged individualists, divorce themselves from the modern world. All that is totally unrealistic, of course.

I believe the world is "possibly" headed for catastrophe but most likely it isn't. Recently, I've been taking some primitive skills classes. Last week, I learned how to make a bow drill and start a fire without lighter fluid or a match. Loved it. Do I want to heat and cook like that every day? Hell No! I like doing things on the computer too much. But I think we should never forget how to live simply. I don't think things are going to go bad for the human race tomorrow, but we should never forget how to do things on a simple level. Homesteading as a day-to-day lifestyle strikes me as a little too hardcore and over the top, but the periodic foray into simple living as a hobby makes perfect sense to me.
 
The more pessimistic your long-term global economic outlook, the more appealing the upsides of a poorer but more self-sufficient lifestyle become.
Don't get me wrong, economically, I believe we're screwed. However, we always find a way to come back from it. I'm just not sweating it because I've been through all kinds of crap. I'll survive, even if it means some level of discomfort.

It's basically a bet on collapse. If you believe debt doesn't really matter anymore and have faith we'll collectively "figure something out when the time comes," you probably will have no motivation to consider that lifestyle, and should invest in a specialized education for yourself and be heavy and long on stocks. If you think we're completely ****ed, you're more likely to see genius in doomsday preparedness, homesteading and voluntarily meager lifestyles.
I'm just enjoying my basic comforts while I have them. No point in getting riled up over a maybe. Maybe we go into full economic collapse, and we end up going back to the days of carpet baggers and dust bowls, and maybe we don't. I'll be fine either way, so I'm not worried about it.
 
I believe the world is "possibly" headed for catastrophe but most likely it isn't. Recently, I've been taking some primitive skills classes. Last week, I learned how to make a bow drill and start a fire without lighter fluid or a match. Loved it. Do I want to heat and cook like that every day? Hell No! I like doing things on the computer too much. But I think we should never forget how to live simply. I don't think things are going to go bad for the human race tomorrow, but we should never forget how to do things on a simple level. Homesteading as a day-to-day lifestyle strikes me as a little too hardcore and over the top, but the periodic foray into simple living as a hobby makes perfect sense to me.

Oh, there's nothing wrong with knowing some survival skills, maybe growing a garden in the back yard, doing some camping, and so on.

Still, when I go camping, at least away from the road where gear has to be carried, I'll go with a modern backpacker stove and freeze dried packaged stuff every time.
 
I don't think we consciously chose that one, did we?

Mostly we did. Our stagnation wasn't spurred by natural forces, humanity's impulse is to push forward. But it was artificially stifled through overbearing theocracy.
 
Mostly we did. Our stagnation wasn't spurred by natural forces, humanity's impulse is to push forward. But it was artificially stifled through overbearing theocracy.

I wouldn't say theocracy was a cause as much as it was a "symptom." The dark ages primarily came about due to the fall of Rome. True, most everybody was sick of Romans and wanted them gone, but Rome fell more because of it's own failings rather than anyone else's efforts, including the "barbarians." Without Rome around to "force" technology on everybody, Europe regressed to a more primitive state. Add the Bubonic plague into the mix and things are going to get really bad. I don't think Humanity collectively said, "Let's just go back to the good ol' days when everything sucked." Empires rise, and Empires fall. That's just the way of it. It's not really a "choice" made by everyone together.
 
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