The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
Jared Diamond is an intellect of the highest order and he has some pretty damning evidence to back up his claims.
Agricultural practices led to land ownership, government, inequality in wealth distribution and the class system.

For a real eye opener read his book "Collapse, why societies choose to fail". You will never see the world in the same way again.

Agriculture and the domestication of animals also led to trade specialization, language, education, science and mathematics, cities and civilizations, even the philosophy we are now sort of discussing. We wouldn't be here sitting in our comfy chairs with internet sipping a coffee from halfway round the world without those things. You can be a hunter gatherer........myself I like living in a comfortable house. You go ice fish and hunt every day in the winter.

Hunter gatherers did not form most of those those things, it was the ability of groups of people to put down permanent roots that allowed human civilization to reach this point. Hunter gatherers were also warlike cultures killing other local groups that threatened their food supply.

It sounds like a lot of romanticizing of the H/G lifestyle to me. Theres a reason most of mankind went the other route, the hunter gatherer lifestyle is hard, short and brutal for the most part. You can have that. There are exceptions to that rule, but that's what they are exceptions to the norm.

reply to post by pavil


This is the line of logic I fell upon when I read the OP. The idea that ingenuity led to social poison is like blaming the invention of computer on the creation of Internet fraud. Culturally, its less about the tools and more about how we use them. We can become better people if we want to be, in spite of prosperity.

I wonder..... would the Wooly Mammoth agree with your mistake theory?
Humans are Human PERIOD... No change of lifestyle will ever change that.
p.s add: So we carried on hunter gathering..... So 2011 ... No large game left on the surface of the earth... no predators because we have taken their food source to extinction... Over fishing because of lack of land game. Then we destroy the seas food chain too... What a really good idea
Agriculture has limited the damage of the human footprint... it is only greed that has polluted the Ideal and living beyond our means.

reply to post by Asktheanimals


It's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

S for you.


reply to post by pavil


There are many paths to the same place, and many ways to interpret history.

Just mulling it over and perhaps the reason people seemed so much healthier ( taller, stronger,etc...) is because the environment was more selective. Agriculture is what allowed science to develop as evidenced by the fact that hunt/ gather cultures had limited understanding of the processes that shaped naturebut with agriculture this knowledge sprung up overnight. With this understanding and the ability to access a ready supply of natural remedies, medicine was born.

Originally posted by soficrow

reply to post by pavil

 

There are many paths to the same place, and many ways to interpret history.

You may disagree but the major advances in human civilization occur directly after we start forming permanent settlements with agriculture and the domestication of animals. Most Hunter/Gatherer groups never develop far beyond basic tribal units without much in the way of knowledge advancements. Their medicine, science and technology and industry for the most part stay very rudimentary.

Most hunter gatherer homo sapien groups went the same way the Neanderthals did. They just couldn't compete with permanent dwelling civilizations and all the advantages they have. That's why the remaining hunter gatherer groups still in existence live in remote and pretty nasty areas of the Earth. If hunter/gathering were the optimal lifestyle for humanity, we would see far more of it.

Originally posted by pavil

Hunter gatherers were also warlike cultures killing other local groups that threatened their food supply.

It sounds like a lot of romanticizing of the H/G lifestyle to me. Theres a reason most of mankind went the other route, the hunter gatherer lifestyle is hard, short and brutal for the most part. You can have that. There are exceptions to that rule, but that's what they are exceptions to the norm.

You make the usual assumptions. But in actuality the opposite is true. Hunter-gatherers were generally peaceful, lived just about as long as we do, were happy and had lots of time to enjoy themselves.

- Their work week is short enough to make us drool in envy.
- They enjoy almost unbelievable egalitarianism - The religious gasp at their high levels of sexual freedom, experimentation, and enjoyment.
- They're damn happy people, laughing freely way more than we do.
- Outside a division of labor, women have total social equality with men.
- They rarely resort to violence or war
- Strong social safety nets in most of their societies support the disabled, old, and in many cases, even the lazy.
- They usually live to be at least as old as we do
- Their health is more robust than ours, and they're frequently immune to diseases ravaging their sedentary neighbors.
- Their social lives are rich, and they have the free time to indulge themselves.
- With a few exceptions, their lifestyle lets them live in harmony with the earth, relying mostly on renewable resources, and keeping their numbers at a sustainable level.
- Their senses appear many times sharper than their own, and many seem curiously immune to extremes of temperature.
- Their strength often seems unbelievable.
- They intelligently use their time to create more productive environments that needs little care.

www.raw-food-health.net...

Originally posted by pavil

You may disagree but the major advances in human civilization occur directly after we start forming permanent settlements with agriculture and the domestication of animals. Most Hunter/Gatherer groups never develop far beyond basic tribal units without much in the way of knowledge advancements. Their medicine, science and technology and industry for the most part stay very rudimentary.

But that was a direct result of having to advance technologically to save time spent farming. Also, don't forget that the most impoartant major advancement in human civilization was, of course, the development of our large brain and capacity to actually advance technologically.

Most hunter gatherer homo sapien groups went the same way the Neanderthals did. They just couldn't compete with permanent dwelling civilizations and all the advantages they have. That's why the remaining hunter gatherer groups still in existence live in remote and pretty nasty areas of the Earth. If hunter/gathering were the optimal lifestyle for humanity, we would see far more of it.

Well, they couldn't compete because of the popluations against whom they were competing. 100 unhealthy agriculturists will take down 1 hunter/gatherer...regardless of his healthy attributes. And the H/G groups live in the nasty areas because they were outnumbered and driven to less desirable spots. And yet,....they thrive.

I can sum that up in three words. THE FASCIST PIG. That is the obomination of all society and history can prove it, but they the facsists keep repeating history of GREED. They think they are better than us all. They need a lobotomy as a cure.

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd


I not disputing that Hunter gatherers for the most part are more robust and hardy than others. It's just that it's not the optimal lifestyle for domination as a species. It may make for a better/healthier individual, but not a society. It's a subsistence lifestyle which doesn't allow for maximum population growth.You may think that is a negative, but as a species you want that.

Hello hunter gatherer-enthusiasts.
I was wondering.. what level of technology do you think could have been developed if the whole human species indeed remained confined to such a lifestyle?
As far as I can tell all the historical H&Gs up to today never developed past any significant technological level.

Originally posted by AurelioMaghe
Hello hunter gatherer-enthusiasts.
I was wondering.. what level of technology do you think could have been developed if the whole human species indeed remained confined to such a lifestyle?
As far as I can tell all the historical H&Gs up to today never developed past any significant technological level.

Fairly high but much, much slower - they managed to develop; agriculture, domestication of animals, fire, bows, and boats - so neccessity drove their inventiveness.....but at some point failing to settle down would have limited there technological advances (IWP)

Personally, I think it's wonderful that our technological advances have polluted the planet with prions, prion-creating contaminants and environmental modifications, and prion-infected microbes, plants, insects, animals and of course, humans.

Along with the 6th Mass Extinction, we are enjoying a period of accelerated evolution it would normally take an extinction level event to accomplish.

Originally posted by romanmel
There are 171,904,640 acres in Texas.

With the Earth's population at almost seven billion, you would have 41 people to the acre density in Texas.

Thus each person could have 1,048 square feet of land, if we brought all the population of the world to Texas.

Yeah, and the great thing is that the population density would fall rapidly as everyone starts to die of malnutrition, dehydration, lack of sanitation and homicide.

Overpopulation has nothing to do with lack of land space, but to with lack of resources such as food, water and energy. As these resources become more scarce people will fight over them.

It would be great if it was all distributed more fairly. Yet I've never seen a practical plan to do this. Even the definition of "fairly" will change form person to person.

reply to post by FatherLukeDuke


Howdy Father

It would be great if it was all distributed more fairly. Yet I've never seen a practical plan to do this. Even the definition of "fairly" will change form person to person.

The average income for people on Earth is just a bit less than 8,000 USD and to get everyone to that level would take a monumental effort and one that wouldn't be well accepted by those who have 8k or more of income.

Originally posted by AurelioMaghe
Hello hunter gatherer-enthusiasts.
I was wondering.. what level of technology do you think could have been developed if the whole human species indeed remained confined to such a lifestyle?
As far as I can tell all the historical H&Gs up to today never developed past any significant technological level.

My guess would be "about the same as the Plains Indians of North America", based on reading quite a bit about different kinds of tribal people (as well as accounts written in the 1800's and before.)

There's a couple of quibbles there, however -- the Plains Indians WERE in contact with other Native Americans who had agrarian lifestyles and had settled down and learned some metallurgy, agriculture, and stoneworking. I'd expect sophisticated work with plant materials and animal hides and bones and sinew. There was a lot of warfare over resources (from stealing women and children to stealing food, raiding camps, and so forth) that kept the population small, as well as starvation.

They couldn't develop much pottery (pots are heavy and fragile), storage, metallurgy (you need good ovens to smelt really decent metals), which limits you on producing things for purifying medicines and so forth. Group size would be limited to a few thousand individuals, divided into smaller parties and camps. The spread of technological ideas would be rather "iffy" and there's not a good chance for a small concept (like, say, writing) to move throughout the whole "nation." I would expect good boat technology from the coastal areas.

In these groups, there would be a lot of social rules (as we see in nomadic tribes) about who can speak to whom, who can marry who, and who raises (owns) the children. There'd be rules about who starves (or is killed) in times when there's little food. Typically, there are also rules about children (including "signs" that children are evil or demonic or should be abandoned and/or killed (there's a long list of these practices that people generally aren't aware of, which we learn in anthropology.))

They're very vulnerable to zoonotic diseases. Historically, hunter-gatherer humans went through a population crash at least once. Agrarian lifestyles and technologies made them less vulnerable to this (but more vulnerable to zoonotic diseases when people began keeping animals as livestock.)

There's little reward for innovation, so I'm not expecting any I-pads out of that kind of group.

Originally posted by romanmel
There are 171,904,640 acres in Texas.

With the Earth's population at almost seven billion, you would have 41 people to the acre density in Texas.

Thus each person could have 1,048 square feet of land, if we brought all the population of the world to Texas.

Less, actually. That doesn't count the area covered by reservoir lakes and land formations where you actually couldn't manage to stand (like the clumps of hoodoos in Big Bend or the Karst sinkholes in the Edwards Limestone area.) And some would be in the middle of alkalai lakes (which are pretty harsh on the skin.)

I'd guess that if you measured out "usable land" it'd be much smaller. If you ruled out the areas covered by cactus, mesquite bushes, locust trees, alkalai lakes, rock cliffs, swamps, and anything that's a 4 hour walk from drinking water, you'd probably end up with about 20 square feet per person (on a wild guess, based on living in Texas and traveling all over the state.)

Originally posted by Hanslune

The average income for people on Earth is just a bit less than 8,000 USD and to get everyone to that level would take a monumental effort and one that wouldn't be well accepted by those who have 8k or more of income.

Really? Source please. I would have expected the average income to be far less than that.

Originally posted by pavil

Originally posted by Hanslune

The average income for people on Earth is just a bit less than 8,000 USD and to get everyone to that level would take a monumental effort and one that wouldn't be well accepted by those who have 8k or more of income.

Really? Source please. I would have expected the average income to be far less than that.

Link

reply to post by Hanslune


Thanks, I would have thought the Poplulations of the India, China and the 3rd World would have far outweighed the higher income but less population of the Developed World. Still doesn't sound right to me.