# Agriculture: the worst mistake in human history? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 27, 2013, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518 "2013-01-27T07:42:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/21 "2013-01-27T17:59:44Z")
> [@](#): > > Paul Graham: I was in Africa last year and saw a lot of animals in the wild that I’d only seen in zoos before. It was remarkable how different they seemed. Particularly lions. Lions in the wild seem about ten times more alive. They’re like different animals. I suspect that working for oneself feels better to humans in much the same way that living in the wild must feel better to a wide-ranging predator like a lion. Life in a zoo is easier, but it isn’t the life they were designed for. I think this is romanticizing. Hunting and gathering is a constant struggle for survival. It’s waking up every morning of your life with no food and not knowing if you’re going to eat that day. Every day you have to go out and find something to eat. If you don’t find something to eat you go to sleep hungry and you wake up weaker tomorrow. If it’s winter time or there’s a drought, you may not find something to eat for several days in a row and you’ll die. If you get sick or injured, you don’t eat until you recover. If you don’t recover quickly enough, you starve to death. Eventually you get too old to go out and get food, so you die. Agriculture is hard work but it gives you something back. You control the food you’re eating and you can make extra. You can go to sleep knowing that you already have the food you will eat tomorrow. You can start making plans that have a broader scope than trying to find something to eat today. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/22 "2013-01-27T18:25:58Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Fuck that shit. I agree in the sense that I greatly prefer modern life. But at the same time, modern life is not better in all possible ways. Not yet, anyway. > [@](#): > > I think this is romanticizing. I would say it depends what you mean by “romanticizing.” I agree that life as a hunter/gatherer was pretty lousy. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/23 "2013-01-27T18:42:14Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > The Bonobo, or pygmy chimpanzee, seems to resolve most of its conflicts with sex, rather than violence. Lots of sex, all the time. > > We could learn from their example. If only we could be like hunter-gatherers and like the Bonobo, except with modern contraceptives. Oh yeah, dentistry would be good to. But I must say, I long for the days when I could cast my weaker family members onto an ice floe to die. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/24 "2013-01-27T18:47:04Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > “hog” lifestyle? Why did you put a dash through the middle of that word? 😕 Whoosh? H-g is for hunter-gatherer. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/25 "2013-01-27T18:59:58Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Civilization is not a mistake! It is the crowning triumph of the human spirit! But it’s also been going down the tubes ever since - youngsters not listening to their elders, people being corrupted and softened by comforts and vices, institutions constantly threatened or cast down by dangerous progressives, not to mention the ever present spectre of folk music. It’s all very paradoxical. > [@Latro](#): > > Would you rather live 20 more years in misery or 10 good ones? I wouldn’t call hunter-gathering or even subsistence farming “good years”, not as such. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/26 "2013-01-27T19:00:29Z")
I dunno, this sounds like romanticizing, although in Jared’s case he might be saying something controversial to get people to think (I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt). The most glaring point I haven’t seen addressed, mentioned by the OP, is why didn’t HG societies have larger populations. HG societies _did_ have most of the problems of agricultural societies. John Keegan mentions how brutal Native American tribes were to each other in his book “On War”. Lastly, did any HG society progress past primitive arts? Did they write plays, or even have writing? It seems to me that the average Greek in 500BC had a better life then the average HG. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/27 "2013-01-27T19:11:27Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think this is romanticizing. Hunting and gathering is a constant struggle for survival. It’s waking up every morning of your life with no food and not knowing if you’re going to eat that day. Every day you have to go out and find something to eat. If you don’t find something to eat you go to sleep hungry and you wake up weaker tomorrow. If it’s winter time or there’s a drought, you may not find something to eat for several days in a row and you’ll die. If you get sick or injured, you don’t eat until you recover. If you don’t recover quickly enough, you starve to death. Eventually you get too old to go out and get food, so you die. > > Agriculture is hard work but it gives you something back. You control the food you’re eating and you can make extra. You can go to sleep knowing that you already have the food you will eat tomorrow. You can start making plans that have a broader scope than trying to find something to eat today. Unless, of course, the rains fail. Then you and your whole village die. Widespread famine is an agricultural phenomena, and it continues to this day. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/28 "2013-01-27T19:15:21Z")
Why wouldn’t a drought decimate a HG society? I guess they have the option of moving to a non-drought area but that assumes there isn’t someone already there. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/29 "2013-01-27T19:18:00Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > I dunno, this sounds like romanticizing, although in Jared’s case he might be saying something controversial to get people to think (I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt). The most glaring point I haven’t seen addressed, mentioned by the OP, is why didn’t HG societies have larger populations. > > HG societies _did_ have most of the problems of agricultural societies. John Keegan mentions how brutal Native American tribes were to each other in his book “On War”. > > Lastly, did any HG society progress past primitive arts? Did they write plays, or even have writing? It seems to me that the average Greek in 500BC had a better life then the average HG. Native Americans are a weird case. The were mostly agriculturalists, although some were forced into a semi-nomadic, h/g lifestyle after the arrival of Europeans. I wouldn’t take them as typical of the h/g lifestyle. Writing is something associated only with civilization. Many agricultural societies would not qualify as “civilized”. Most of what people think of today as “primitive h/g societies” are actually agricultural societies-- eg, the varies tribes found in Papua New Guinea. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/30 "2013-01-27T19:18:34Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > Why wouldn’t a drought decimate a HG society? I guess they have the option of moving to a non-drought area but that assumes there isn’t someone already there. I think her point was that agriculture was not a guarantee against an uncertain food supply. Draught, insects, disease can make even agriculture uncertain. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/31 "2013-01-27T19:35:22Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > I agree in the sense that I greatly prefer modern life. But at the same time, modern life is not better in all possible ways. Not yet, anyway. > > I would say it depends what you mean by “romanticizing.” I agree that life as a hunter/gatherer was pretty lousy. I think by “romanticizing” he means that people misinterpret the existential crisis that can manifest itself as a side effect of living in a post-industrial capitalist society where mot of our daily wants and needs are provided for us as some sort indication that life would be preferable in a more primitive hunter gatherer society. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/32 "2013-01-27T19:47:03Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Unless, of course, the rains fail. Then you and your whole village die. Widespread famine is an agricultural phenomena, and it continues to this day. But even here, farmers are better off than hunter-gatherers. Both will be hurt when the food supply diminishes due to natural causes. But farmers have some food in storage - they have more options for traveling to somewhere else unaffected by the drought. The reason widespread famine is an agricultural phenomena is because they had a standard to compare it to - they recognized periods when the food supply was stable. For hunter-gatherers, the state of always being on the verge of starving to death was just the way they lived. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/33 "2013-01-27T20:08:01Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I think by “romanticizing” he means that people misinterpret the existential crisis that can manifest itself as a side effect of living in a post-industrial capitalist society where mot of our daily wants and needs are provided for us as some sort indication that life would be preferable in a more primitive hunter gatherer society. Ok. Well I don’t think that Graham or myself are romanticizing the hunter-gatherer life by that definition. As I said, I think it was probably pretty lousy. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/34 "2013-01-27T20:14:05Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Not the “Noble Savage” thing! Please! > > Disease. Sepsis. More disease. Losing your teeth. Starving. Freezing. Don’t forget being trampled or mauled by whatever you’re hunting. Good times, good times. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/35 "2013-01-27T20:21:06Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > **GIGO** : Would you make the trade? If I told you I could give you a much better chance of a longer life “in captivity”, would you choose it? Well, we have to remember what it was early in the development of agriculture and cities, if my children have a chance to grow up relatively safe from the nomad hordes behind the walls of the city, you bet it is a good trade; it is true that slavery came almost right away, but that was mostly the result of organizing an army thanks to the invention of writing and other things to help us deal with those hordes. IIRC becoming a slave had less to do on a choice of the original farmers in relation to the first city states, it was people who were conquered or defeated who got turned into slaves. Not much of a choice. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/36 "2013-01-27T20:27:43Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > The point in this discussion being that we live longer but _less_ content. > > Would you rather live 20 more years in misery or 10 good ones? Not seeing the “less content” item you are referring to. > **[Is Violence History? (Published 2011)](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/books/review/the-better-angels-of-our-nature-by-steven-pinker-book-review.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0#h)** > > In his new book, Steven Pinker argues that our current era is less violent, less cruel and more peaceful than any previous period of human existence. > [@](#): > > Pinker begins with studies of the causes of death in different eras and peoples. Some studies are based on skeletons found at archaeological sites; averaging their results suggests that 15 percent of prehistoric humans met a violent death at the hands of another person. Research into contemporary or recent hunter-gatherer societies yields a remarkably similarly average, while another cluster of studies of pre-state societies that include some horticulture has an even higher rate of violent death. In contrast, among state societies, the most violent appears to have been Aztec Mexico, in which 5 percent of people were killed by others. In Europe, even during the bloodiest periods — the 17th century and the first half of the 20th — deaths in war were around 3 percent. The data vindicates Hobbes’s basic insight, that without a state, life is likely to be “nasty, brutish and short.” In contrast, a state monopoly on the legitimate use of force reduces violence and makes everyone living under that monopoly better off than they would otherwise have been. Pinker calls this the “pacification process.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/37 "2013-01-27T20:35:31Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Well, we have to remember what it was early in the development of agriculture and cities, if my children have a chance to grow up relatively safe from the nomad hordes behind the walls of the city, you bet it is a good trade; it is true that slavery came almost right away, but that was mostly the result of organizing an army thanks to the invention of writing and other things to help us deal with those hordes. IIRC becoming a slave had less to do on a choice of the original farmers in relation to the first city states, it was people who were conquered or defeated who got turned into slaves. Not much of a choice. Not to imply that I want to pursue this any further, but your original post didn’t even mention agriculture. It wasn’t clear that you were talking about specific times and places, but rather living in captivity vs not. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/38 "2013-01-27T20:42:30Z")
Well, remember: context, context and more context. 🙂 I was replying to another poster that BTW was not talking just about slavery or captivity but about brains among hunter gatherers now having to deal with [del]cuneiform tablets[/del] paperwork, and I was taking the the OP into consideration. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/39 "2013-01-27T21:26:11Z")
Where do people get the idea that hunter-gatherers were ‘always on the brink of starvation’? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/40 "2013-01-27T22:28:58Z")
I read a book about the traditional, h-g society of the Khoi people. It was an interesting read. It wasn’t that they were always on the brink of starvation out in the Kalahari, but they had serious energetic constraints on them. For instance, children tend to be spaced out every five years so that there was never two siblings nursing at the same time. A mother could only gather enough to support herself and one child. So infanticide was an unfortunate but not uncommon thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518.md?page=3)