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>The whole idea that Hunter-Gatherer was a superior lifestyle seems at odds with the fact that agriculture won. As the famed Prisoner's Dilemma[1] shows, the d

>The whole idea that Hunter-Gatherer was a superior lifestyle seems at odds with the fact that agriculture won. As the famed Prisoner's Dilemma[1] shows, the dominant strategy (the one that "wins") is not necessarily the same as the optimum strategy (the one that's most favorable for all the participants). Essentially the latter question simplifies to, "is it better if everyone in the world adopts X, vs. adopting Y?" The former question simplifies to, "who wins when people who adopt X come into conflict with neighboring people who adopt Y?" These are not the same question, and they need not have the same answer. Far from "reducing conflict", one explanation is that agriculture gave certain tribes surplus food, allowing them to wage war and kill/enslave/absorb their neighbors, or even simply out-breed and slowly displace them. Many agricultural tribes will no doubt be peaceful and direct this surplus to other ends, but the presence of a single war-like (or otherwise expansionist) agricultural tribe destabilizes the equilibrium. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

jandrese 9y ago
Seems like they had already won once they had a reliable agricultural surplus. Doesn't matter if they were warlike or not their numbers are going to explode and they're going to start pushing out the HG societies.
- schiffern 9y ago
  Sorry for the confusion. I agree 100%, and edited to try to make that clearer. The presence of a single expansionist tribe destabilizes the equilibrium (be it any combination of military, economic, cultural, or political expansionism). Like the suspects being interrogated in separate rooms, each tribe cannot trust all the other tribes to agree to be non-expansionist. I fear you missed my main point though, which was that this is a completely separate question from whether the system is "superior" (from the perspective of the aggregate well-being of the individuals in the society). Feel free to substitute a different term than "superior" if you prefer, but that's all semantics.
  - jandrese 9y ago
    I agree that it does come down to how you classify "superior". From a gene propagation standpoint (your children survive and have children of their own), it isn't a contest. Agriculture is the clear winner. In a "how fulfilling is your life" context there is more room for debate, but I tend to think that modern authors overly discount the negative effects of food insecurity in a primitive society. The tradeoff between "your daily life is full of toil but you and your children probably won't starve to death or be eaten by a wild animal" is one that people came down hard in favor of historically. In the long view, only one lifestyle choice leads to a population that can survive the next dinosaur killing asteroid impact. But seriously, modern people underestimate how much it sucks foraging for food every day, even in the rain, even in the snow, even when the local animals have died off due to some disease, even when you are sick and/or injured, you either hunt or you go hungry. Your culture has to be largely word of mouth because anything else you have to carry with you. Technology progresses at a glacial pace because you don't have a system of writing and you don't have reliable sources for most raw materials. Even if you do find a source for something useful like obsidian your nomadic lifestyle means your access is still limited. My stance remains that people who wax poetically about how superior the Hunter-Gatherer lifestyle is are not thinking things all the way through.
    - schiffern 9y ago
      Thanks, great discussion and great points. I agree on all of them, but the part about space sticks in my brain. While I think it's correct, imo it's only looking at one side of the long-term-human-survival coin. >In the long view, only one lifestyle choice leads to a population that can survive the next dinosaur killing asteroid impact. A nice future to imagine, but it's hardly a foregone conclusion. The future might lead there, or it might lead elsewhere. In the real world it's looking like business-as-usual kills the civilization (but not the human species) before we get a chance to re-enact Deep Impact. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMmChiLZZHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMmChiLZZHg Expanding into space doesn't help us if we proceed to destroy our habitats on a finite time-scale (which is all "unsustainable" means: that it cannot continue for some reason). And we haven't figured out how to avoid that in an industrial society, which is necessary for living in space. New planets don't help if every civilization you establish on them inevitably collapses. Expanding through space can't be used to maintain a non-zero exponential growth rate either, if for no other reason than that the available volume of space only grows as t^3. Ultimately we must BOTH establish a completely sustainable, steady-state (capable of 0% growth indefinitely) global civilization AND expand into space, or perish as a species. Neither is sufficient on its own. Agriculture does seem to help the latter, but it hurts the former. Seeing as how we haven't actually retired the asteroid risk yet, and yet we have introduced at least two new existential risks (nuclear war and environmental degradation/climate change), I'd say we're not looking that great in the long view. Our current score seems to be two steps backwards, one [hypothetical] step forwards.
- otakucode 9y ago
  That's not necessarily the case. When populations have adequate resources, they do not explode. Their birth rate falls. This has been seen repeatedly all over the world across myriad human cultures. Failure to account for it screwed Japan who banked on an infinitely growing population, is currently screwing South Korea for making the same mistake, and will screw the US (and probably most others) eventually. The real danger is that with agriculture, unlike with nomadic tribes, if someone decides to dominate others in a region, the tribe can't just leave that person behind. A nomadic tribe goes over the next hill and leaves the jerk to be dominant over the weeds and sticks. An agricultural society just gets dominated.
dbcurtis 9y ago
I'd like to point out to those that downvoted shiffern's comment that large armies only arose after agriculture made it possible. Downvotes do not counter historical fact, no matter how much cognative dissonance the facts cause for you.

jandrese 9y ago

Seems like they had already won once they had a reliable agricultural surplus. Doesn't matter if they were warlike or not their numbers are going to explode and they're going to start pushing out the HG societies.

schiffern 9y ago
Sorry for the confusion. I agree 100%, and edited to try to make that clearer. The presence of a single expansionist tribe destabilizes the equilibrium (be it any combination of military, economic, cultural, or political expansionism). Like the suspects being interrogated in separate rooms, each tribe cannot trust all the other tribes to agree to be non-expansionist. I fear you missed my main point though, which was that this is a completely separate question from whether the system is "superior" (from the perspective of the aggregate well-being of the individuals in the society). Feel free to substitute a different term than "superior" if you prefer, but that's all semantics.
- jandrese 9y ago
  I agree that it does come down to how you classify "superior". From a gene propagation standpoint (your children survive and have children of their own), it isn't a contest. Agriculture is the clear winner. In a "how fulfilling is your life" context there is more room for debate, but I tend to think that modern authors overly discount the negative effects of food insecurity in a primitive society. The tradeoff between "your daily life is full of toil but you and your children probably won't starve to death or be eaten by a wild animal" is one that people came down hard in favor of historically. In the long view, only one lifestyle choice leads to a population that can survive the next dinosaur killing asteroid impact. But seriously, modern people underestimate how much it sucks foraging for food every day, even in the rain, even in the snow, even when the local animals have died off due to some disease, even when you are sick and/or injured, you either hunt or you go hungry. Your culture has to be largely word of mouth because anything else you have to carry with you. Technology progresses at a glacial pace because you don't have a system of writing and you don't have reliable sources for most raw materials. Even if you do find a source for something useful like obsidian your nomadic lifestyle means your access is still limited. My stance remains that people who wax poetically about how superior the Hunter-Gatherer lifestyle is are not thinking things all the way through.
  - schiffern 9y ago
    Thanks, great discussion and great points. I agree on all of them, but the part about space sticks in my brain. While I think it's correct, imo it's only looking at one side of the long-term-human-survival coin. >In the long view, only one lifestyle choice leads to a population that can survive the next dinosaur killing asteroid impact. A nice future to imagine, but it's hardly a foregone conclusion. The future might lead there, or it might lead elsewhere. In the real world it's looking like business-as-usual kills the civilization (but not the human species) before we get a chance to re-enact Deep Impact. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMmChiLZZHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMmChiLZZHg Expanding into space doesn't help us if we proceed to destroy our habitats on a finite time-scale (which is all "unsustainable" means: that it cannot continue for some reason). And we haven't figured out how to avoid that in an industrial society, which is necessary for living in space. New planets don't help if every civilization you establish on them inevitably collapses. Expanding through space can't be used to maintain a non-zero exponential growth rate either, if for no other reason than that the available volume of space only grows as t^3. Ultimately we must BOTH establish a completely sustainable, steady-state (capable of 0% growth indefinitely) global civilization AND expand into space, or perish as a species. Neither is sufficient on its own. Agriculture does seem to help the latter, but it hurts the former. Seeing as how we haven't actually retired the asteroid risk yet, and yet we have introduced at least two new existential risks (nuclear war and environmental degradation/climate change), I'd say we're not looking that great in the long view. Our current score seems to be two steps backwards, one [hypothetical] step forwards.
otakucode 9y ago
That's not necessarily the case. When populations have adequate resources, they do not explode. Their birth rate falls. This has been seen repeatedly all over the world across myriad human cultures. Failure to account for it screwed Japan who banked on an infinitely growing population, is currently screwing South Korea for making the same mistake, and will screw the US (and probably most others) eventually. The real danger is that with agriculture, unlike with nomadic tribes, if someone decides to dominate others in a region, the tribe can't just leave that person behind. A nomadic tribe goes over the next hill and leaves the jerk to be dominant over the weeds and sticks. An agricultural society just gets dominated.

dbcurtis 9y ago

I'd like to point out to those that downvoted shiffern's comment that large armies only arose after agriculture made it possible. Downvotes do not counter historical fact, no matter how much cognative dissonance the facts cause for you.