Agriculture: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
15th December 2019
Jared Diamond has some thoughts.
For most of our history we supported ourselves by hunting and gathering: we hunted wild animals and foraged for wild plants. It’s a life that philosophers have traditionally regarded as nasty, brutish, and short. Since no food is grown and little is stored, there is (in this view) no respite from the struggle that starts anew each day to find wild foods and avoid starving. Our escape from this misery was facilitated only 10,000 years ago, when in different parts of the world people began to domesticate plants and animals. The agricultural revolution spread until today it’s nearly universal and few tribes of hunter-gatherers survive.
The anthropological research I’ve read suggests that hunter-gatherers were better nourished, healthier, and had less of a daily workload than agricultural workers.