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http://www.awok.org/worst-mistake/

Basic thesis: Agriculture was probably humanity's greatest mistake. It produced overdependence on a monolithic diet that produced serious health consequences. It produces the classic scourge of class inequality and led to gender inequality.

Interesting article but I don't buy all of it. It's refreshing to see a well-argued contrarian view though. It was written by Jared Diamond, the scholar behind the AWESOME BOOK Guns Germs and Steel

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Jim_Gunn

Jared's book "Gun's, Germs & Steel" is indeed awesome. I haven't read this article yet, BUT one thing is for sure, one has to accept the good with the bad. Whatever ills agriculture has brought humanity, it is also largely responsible for the modern civilization that we take for granted.

If we were still living as hunter gatherers, we'd still have a tiny human population across the globe and a primitive means of living for everyone without modern technology. Would you want to trade the world we have, as flawed as it is, for some fantasy idea of living like what anthropologists used to call "the noble savages"?

Elli

Diamond's book "Collapse" was even more interesting, I found. Check it out if you're into his stuff.

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D

No agriculture = no beer.

Thanks, but no thanks.

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rapmaster

interesting concept but without agriculture we'd probably be back in the stone age or something like that

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baddog

I blame lima beans

dozey

Assuming nature would conspire towards the nourishment of humans in the absence of agriculture seems unwise... live and learn I guess. Time to head out for dinner.

_Richard_

interesting idea

but fucking flawed lol

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You pose a real good critique. In addition to conscious or unconscious idealization re a "primitive" society there's also the fact that while our modern civilization has many problems it also has created many opportunities for self-actualization, philosophy, and transcendence.

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Very well-argued though but it doesn't take into consideration many other factors.

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minusonebit

In a heartbeat. The unabomber lived better than many of us do today in his cabin in the woods. And I'd love nothing more than wipe out 2/3s of the world population with a single stroke of the brush. Human beings need population control just like everything else.

StuartD

What would be the alternative though?
The human race has a few brilliant minds but as a whole, we're pretty stupid. Err, I mean primitive... still.

If we hadn't discovered agriculture, we'd have just done something equally or more stupid to screw us up even more. I mean, imagine we just continued down the hunting path and only ever ate meat. Eventually 1) the meat would run out as our population grew and 2) we'd continue to be savage hunters forever with sharp teeth, very little intelligence and a penchant for violence.

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Probono

Bingo!! Fewer people means a higher quality of life for all people. If religion was not so idiotic more family planning would make a better world for everyone. If we don't do it mother nature will with war, famine, pestilence oh they wrote part o a religious book about those horsemen didn't they.

Brother Bilo

Well, if there was no agriculture, there would be no farms. Therefore, no land to steal from farmers in the name of Eminent domain. Then what would the government have to do? Nothing, thats what.

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papill0n

nice article - I disagree with most of it but interesting none the less

GreyWolf

Part of the idiot brigade - what else you expect from an Associate Professor at Iowa State University??? Duh???

No surprise the country is fucked and could not even feed itself if it tried.

After Shock Media

Mother nature already more than takes care of it. People group together in areas of high risk and typically get hit in large numbers. Though we do spread out, we do not do so as an organism normally should. So yes drought, earthquakes, flooding, disease, and a whole multitude of natural disasters work well towards population control. By the way, war is not mother nature.

Then if you look to more educated and well off people you will see they have less children and just breed less. Thus some countries are actually experiencing a negative population growth. Then you have when Governments make an attempt and you get a screw up like you did in China where you now do not have enough women for the future and it is now of national concern. To many men, not enough women and you will have a population issue.

It may also be argued that prohibiting abortions (wrong in my eyes) also increases the overall mortality in an area or country. Those with prohibitive laws seem to show higher numbers in child & mother deaths, typically do to having the procedure done outside of a safe medical facility.

To what the author said though. We have seen several cultures accidentally use agriculture to the point of self destruction. You have all those Asia temples that were built and eventually lost to the jungles again due primarily to overworking the fields, you can possibly blame the fall of Rome on not only lead poisoning but overworking the mountain regions and along riversides which silted up their harbors and created swampland where there was once fishing and boating, to numerous other cultures that went about it all wrong despite how successful they were at the time as empires.

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Grapesoda

over the course of 10,000 years it affect the human diet in a negative way however it also allowed human mental development. so know we need to use the elevated mental status to over come the diet deficiencies. -bmb

Grapesoda

I love lima beans, ever eat at 'el chavo' on sunset in silverlake? great lima bean soup. -bmb

Jim_Gunn

Yeah, that's a great life living in a shitty cabin all alone and throwing your life away because you are angry at the world.

minusonebit

Well, that and the way societies encourage uncontrolled breeding. Here in the US, we give welfare recipients more money and more food stamps for every one they pop out. Other nations seem to be even worse, offering direct "cash for a kid" type of things. Pop it out, get a check the next day type of things.

After Shock Media

Your other countries cash for a kid programs are in areas that I mentioned, negative population growths or lack of females.

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Very very true. Especially in a Third World setting.

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Actually, it was part of a reading list for that Iowa State University professor. The article itself was written by Jared Diamond.

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slapass

He points out in his book that the regions that have farmers and hunters/gastherer near each other. The standard of living of the hunter/getherers is higher then the farmers.