Population Growth Burned Humanity's Boats

Harari calls the agricultural revolution "History's Greatest Fraud." Wheat domesticated humans, and humans, on average, wound up a lot worse off. Hunter gatherers are exposed to the elements and to predation by large carnivores, but they have a lot of compensations. They eat a highly varied diet, and a nutritious one, because it's the diet millions of years of evolution prepared us for. Because they move constantly, they reproduce slowly, which retards population growth. Since they live in small isolated groups, without domestic animals, they are relatively free of disease. For most, a few hours of work each day suffices to provide them with food and other requirements.

Most people in agricultural societies, by contrast, eat a very narrow diet, live in crowded villages, side by side with their own filth, and reproduce rapidly. Agriculture typically requires long hours of literally backbreaking labor - slipped and herniated disc's become common only after the invention of agriculture. The crowded conditions and accumulated waste make disease rampant, and when animals are added to the mix they bring our epidemic diseases.

So why did humans let themselves be enslaved by wheat? Harari's answer, given in far more detail, basically boils down to the same way we make bad decisions today: it seemed like a good idea at the time. A little labor invested in planting some wheat grains rather than just waiting for nature to provide paid dividends at the end of the season. As population exploded, it took more and more labor to produce enough grain to feed all the children. And now returning to an HG lifestyle was impossible, population growth, as Harari put it, had burned Humanity's boats.

Of course agriculture made possible civilization and all it has brought, but for most of 12,000 years it was a very bad deal for the average agriculturist.

He's not fond of the deal animals get from being domesticated either, and devotes a few pages to the cruel methods used then and now.

He offers some alternative scenarios for human domestication by wheat, but I found them less persuasive.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec...
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st...
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more