# 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:** 3
**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, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/41 "2013-01-27T22:58:55Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > 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, Right and that is in the middle of a bloody desert. Maybe the Khoi are what people are thinking about when they think of hunter-gatherers? Naked bushmen in the desert. That’s where the last h-g heve been relegated to But before farming h-g didn’t live in the desert. h-g could live in lush forests with fruit literaly for the picking. Even our Northern hemisphere was full of wildlife, fish a plenty, game, fowl and what have ya. It wasn’t miles and miles of trekking to scrape a meal for the day. It’s only bigger game like deer that you have to do real (stereotypical) hunting for. Other hunting that involved some amount of ‘work’ was by chasing the bigger animals into a trap, or simply off the edge of a cliff. But basically all they had to do to be really sure of a meal for the day was to set a fish-trap in the morning. ---
**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, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/42 "2013-01-27T23:40:49Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Where do people get the idea that hunter-gatherers were ‘always on the brink of starvation’? That’s an interesting question. I’ve seen videos of the [Sentinelese](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GGySHNoJDU) and they don’t look like they are on the brink of starvation. I think the point is that every society goes through lean years now and then and hunter/gatherers are especially vulnerable in such times. Of course early agriculturalists were also vulnerable. Who was more vulnerable? The answer does not seem obvious. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/43 "2013-01-27T23:55:46Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But many people would argue that even a hellish existence is better than no existence at all. Agriculture may have required a mass of peasants to support it but it also supported that mass of peasants. Farming produced enough food (albeit through hard labor) for population growth. > > Saying a tribe of a hundred hunter-gathers lived better lives than a village of a thousand peasants is only ten percent true. For the other ninety percent, life as a peasant was better than no life at all. This doesn’t make sense. Should we increase the human population to massive levels, and keep people locked in cages on starvation diets, just to give them a hellish existence? You’re not thinking this argument through. ---
**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, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/44 "2013-01-27T23:58:19Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Right and that is in the middle of a bloody desert. Maybe the Khoi are what people are thinking about when they think of hunter-gatherers? > Naked bushmen in the desert. That’s where the last h-g heve been relegated to > But before farming h-g didn’t live in the desert. h-g could live in lush forests with fruit literaly for the picking. Even our Northern hemisphere was full of wildlife, fish a plenty, game, fowl and what have ya. > It wasn’t miles and miles of trekking to scrape a meal for the day. It’s only bigger game like deer that you have to do real (stereotypical) hunting for. > Other hunting that involved some amount of ‘work’ was by chasing the bigger animals into a trap, or simply off the edge of a cliff. > But basically all they had to do to be really sure of a meal for the day was to set a fish-trap in the morning. I don’t think is that simple, that ignores seasonal variability, that variability also meant that many times hunters and gatherers migrated, and there are hardships with that. I think it is also likely that thanks to our increase in intelligence a lot of the prehistoric fauna was finished, what was easy for HGs before turned hard for them. IIUC many HGs also had a period were they domesticated what became our modern farm animals, like the bull, and then overgrazing seems to have entered the picture. > **[Egypt and North Africa](http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch02.htm)** > > From 9000 BCE, climate change around 3500 BCE, desertification, the Berbers and others. Overgrazing was likely to had removed a lot of the areas that could support large numbers of HGs, I think that many HGs, just decided eventually to move to the cities that not only had figured out agriculture, but had adopted the domesticated animals. If they were not enslaved by now. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/45 "2013-01-28T00:06:26Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But many people would argue that even a hellish existence is better than no existence at all. Agriculture may have required a mass of peasants to support it but it also supported that mass of peasants. Farming produced enough food (albeit through hard labor) for population growth. > > Saying a tribe of a hundred hunter-gathers lived better lives than a village of a thousand peasants is only ten percent true. For the other ninety percent, life as a peasant was better than no life at all. This sophistry rationalizes any manner of slavery or exploitation, of both people and natural resources. ---
**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 28, 2013, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/46 "2013-01-28T00:39:34Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Where do people get the idea that hunter-gatherers were ‘always on the brink of starvation’? That’s what hunting and gathering means. If you don’t go out and do it every day, you don’t eat. That means that something like a flu or a broken toe was a lethal injury because it kept you from eating. ---
**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 28, 2013, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/47 "2013-01-28T00:51:12Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > This doesn’t make sense. Should we increase the human population to massive levels, and keep people locked in cages on starvation diets, just to give them a hellish existence? You’re not thinking this argument through. > [@Peremensoe](#): > > This sophistry rationalizes any manner of slavery or exploitation, of both people and natural resources. No, it doesn’t follow. I said a hellish existence is better than non-existence (and keep in mind the “hellish” existence we’re talking about is being a peasant farmer). But a good existence is better than a hellish existence. If you have the resources for people to live good lives, you’re not justified in putting them into bad lives. If anything, I think you can argue that the proponents of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle are the ones who would be willing to condone slavery and exploitation. Think about it: agricultural societies clearly support more people than hunter-gatherer societies. The argument hunter-gatherer proponents are making is that while hunter-gatherers may be fewer in number they have a higher quality of life. So the argument is we should support a system because it gives the most to the few - and from there, you’re only a half-step away from defending slavery and exploitation. ---
**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 28, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/48 "2013-01-28T00:58:31Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > That’s an interesting question. I’ve seen videos of the [Sentinelese](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GGySHNoJDU) and they don’t look like they are on the brink of starvation. What are you basing that one? We’re seeing a bunch of Sentinelese on the beach and none of them are dead? ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/49 "2013-01-28T00:59:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That’s what hunting and gathering means. If you don’t go out and do it every day, you don’t eat. That means that something like a flu or a broken toe was a lethal injury because it kept you from eating. I wouldn’t go that far. After all, hunter gatherers usually operate in groups. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/50 "2013-01-28T01:01:21Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > No, it doesn’t follow. **I said a hellish existence is better than non-existence** (and keep in mind the “hellish” existence we’re talking about is being a peasant farmer). But a good existence is better than a hellish existence. If you have the resources for people to live good lives, you’re not justified in putting them into bad lives. Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. That is pernicious nonsense. The non-existence we’re talking about is not _death_, it’s just _never being_ in the first place. If you really think _any life is better_ than that, then you’re saying that everybody everywhere should have as many children as they possibly can, even when that is certain to mean more work, less space, less freedom, and more suffering for all of them. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/51 "2013-01-28T01:01:54Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What are you basing that one? We’re seeing a bunch of Sentinelese on the beach and none of them are dead? They appear to have a reasonably healthy amount of fat and muscle on their bodies. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/52 "2013-01-28T01:23:13Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > The idea is that as hunter-gatherers people live peaceful, leisurely lives, and that agriculture introduced overcrowding, famine, disease, inequality and endless toil. [What endless toil?](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html) Sure, if you’re a hunter-gatherer living in the tropics where hunting, gathering, and preparing food only take up [four or five hours per day](http://www.eco-action.org/dt/affluent.html), with much of the rest of the time devoted to napping and bullshitting, putting in an intermittent eight, even during planting or harvest, with plenty of time off for napping and partying, may seem like drudgery, but it’s only been in the past few hundred years that more has been expected of people, and that was mostly because of industry. So I blame industry and the choice of some of our ancestors to move into areas with shitty climates. I don’t know what Diamond has to say about it, having gotten only a few pages into _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ before putting it down because it was all patently obvious, but I think moving northward caused industrialization because people had those long winters to fiddle around with stuff, though I think Diamond says something about not being laid out with Dengue Fever helped. I will miss having a couple weeks of deep freezes to kill most of the mosquitoes. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/53 "2013-01-28T02:00:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That’s what hunting and gathering means. If you don’t go out and do it every day, you don’t eat. That means that something like a flu or a broken toe was a lethal injury because it kept you from eating. Why do you think a hunter or a gatherer couldn’t hunt or gather enough food in one day to last for several days? There are plenty of wild foods that can last for a long time. Hunters preserve plant and animal foods in a variety of ways–drying, smoking, fermenting, freezing, and so on. Plus, hunter-gatherers don’t live alone, they live in family groups. So when your Mom breaks her toe, and has to hobble around, you get food for her, you don’t let her starve to death unless you’re also starving to death. ---
**Author:** ![cultivar07](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71c47a/32.png) [@cultivar07](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cultivar07)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/54 "2013-01-28T02:23:44Z")
Many people seem to neglect the fact that the American Indians in modern day USA were hunter gatherers with very limited agriculture when the Europeans came. Were they peaceful? Hell no. They fought against each other all the time and enslavement of women and children were common place. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/55 "2013-01-28T03:45:13Z")
Instead of whether agriculture **was** a mistake, we should start thinking about when and how we can put it behind us. It is not an eco-friendly way to produce food; maybe hydroponics would be better. ---
**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 28, 2013, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/56 "2013-01-28T04:17:18Z")
Heh, I was wondering then what one properly calls the cultivation that happens on the ground, turn out that it has a name, **geoponics**. > **[Geoponics Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/geoponics)** > > Geoponics definition, the art or science of agriculture. See more. [Johnie Carson] I didn’t know that! [/JC] ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/57 "2013-01-28T04:59:26Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It’s noted by Gwynne Dyer that studies of the Yanomano and other similar Stone Age tribes show a mortality rate, generation to generation, of 25% to inter-tribal conflict. That is, 25% of all adult deaths are due to warfare. Forever. Valhalla must be a savage place indeed . . . ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/58 "2013-01-28T05:29:20Z")
> [@cultivar07](#): > > Many people seem to neglect the fact that the American Indians in modern day USA were hunter gatherers with very limited agriculture when the Europeans came. Were they peaceful? Hell no. They fought against each other all the time and enslavement of women and children were common place. No, most native Americans were farmers who sometimes hunted. Do you remember the story of Thanksgiving? How the indians taught the pilgrims to grow maize? The Pilgrims settled in an abandoned farming village and were able to begin farming right away because the fields were already cleared. The village was abandoned because everyone in the village had died of smallpox except Squanto, who was the only survivor because he had been enslaved when the epidemic happened. He helped the Pilgrims even though they were living in his home village. Our stereotypical notion of the lifestyle of the American Indian is based on the people who had been devastated by disease and expelled from their traditional homelands. Their recent ancestors had been farmers but they became hunter-gatherers after a radical population crash. In Canada and Alaska and the Pacific Northwest most indians were hunter-gatherers, but the East Coast and Midwest of the United States was densely covered with farms before European contact. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/59 "2013-01-28T14:24:31Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > No, most native Americans were farmers who sometimes hunted. Do you remember the story of Thanksgiving? How the indians taught the pilgrims to grow maize? The Pilgrims settled in an abandoned farming village and were able to begin farming right away because the fields were already cleared. The village was abandoned because everyone in the village had died of smallpox except Squanto, who was the only survivor because he had been enslaved when the epidemic happened. He helped the Pilgrims even though they were living in his home village. > > Our stereotypical notion of the lifestyle of the American Indian is based on the people who had been devastated by disease and expelled from their traditional homelands. Their recent ancestors had been farmers but they became hunter-gatherers after a radical population crash. In Canada and Alaska and the Pacific Northwest most indians were hunter-gatherers, but the East Coast and Midwest of the United States was densely covered with farms before European contact. I’d also point out that the native Americans in some cases built rather considerable cities - for example, Cahokia was comparable in size to contemporary European major cities. Also, the Anasazi built sizable urban residences (in some cases, 3 story stone buildings). The notion that preColumbian natives were all hunter-gatherers is a myth. Most were as you say agriculturalists, and some even had urban civilizations. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518/60 "2013-01-28T14:54:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Valhalla must be a savage place indeed . . . You could be a savage in Valhalla and practice gorilla warfare, or you could be a bonobo (i.e. _Pan Promiscuous_) and be all like “Valhalla I am coming!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agriculture-the-worst-mistake-in-human-history/648518.md?page=4)