I'm pretty sure that this essay is farcical, sarcastic, and/or ironic. Also, I'm guessing from the style and topic this is the same Jared Diamond who wrote Gun

I'm pretty sure that this essay is farcical, sarcastic, and/or ironic. Also, I'm guessing from the style and topic this is the same Jared Diamond who wrote Guns, Germs, and Steel? Particularly the clock idea I believe is repeated there. It's also curious to note that this copy seems to have been OCRed, given that there's at least one occurrence of "fanners" instead of "farmers".