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I'm reminded of the factoid that hunter-gatherers and nomads were healthier, stronger, and had more varied diets and lifestyles than farmers living under the th

I'm reminded of the factoid that hunter-gatherers and nomads were healthier, stronger, and had more varied diets and lifestyles than farmers living under the thumb of centralized states, which begs the question of why farmers didn't just leave their fields behind and escape into the wilderness. A key part of the puzzle is probably that it takes significant skill and knowledge to forage off the land, while farming takes considerably less skill and more grunt labor. Humans shifted from a small population of hunter-gathers to a large population of taxable and conscriptable farmers-from-birth that forced nomads out into marginal lands where farmers couldn't survive. It seems that the internet is going through a similar dynamic. Highly skilled tech wizards that can roll their own equipment will continue to exist at the fringes, but the mass of less skilled and centrally manipulated users will dictate the momentum of the internet going forwards, much like how highly populated agricultural states became the dominant historical force based on their sheer mass and numbers.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago
Both ancient farming and hunter gathering are skilled jobs that require co-operation and long term planning - I would be surprised if you or I could hack it at either job ! Farming has for a long time been this "mystery" - and afaik the debate is still ongoing. My understanding is that farming produces a regular "income" of calories, with a storage function - similar to the desire for SaaS based "subscription" income as opposed to one off sales - one is just psychologically "safer". On top of this you can then add the farming surplus, investment in static capital like buildings etc. My take is that it is a give and take between fixed buildings that offer protection from migrating tribes leads to giving up the following the herd which leads to fixed buildings which leads to grain storage which leads to ... references: looking up now
empiko 6y ago
I don't think this is a good analogy. Farming is in fact more difficult than foraging. You need all kinds of technologies to actually make it work (you need to seed, you need to take care of it, you need to harvest, you need to store, you need to process it properly). And on top of that, some of the activities are really back-breaking. Farming has now won because it was easier, but because it allows for bigger populations and bigger population means safety against other groups. Foragers are limited by the current amount of calories in the nature, which is not that high. This forces them to migrate, but migration limits the amount of young kids that you can have. A pair of hunter-gatherers would usually have kids every 4-5 years to that the youngest one can be carried and all the older ones can walk on their own. Farmers don't have to migrate so they can have a new kid every year (even though higher infant mortality will even this to some extent). In the end there is a hard limit on hunter-gatherer group size (tens of people), while farmers can scale their society to millions (as has happened in China fairly early on). When there is a conflict between these two groups (e.g. about who should use some land), it is easy to see who will win eventually.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

Both ancient farming and hunter gathering are skilled jobs that require co-operation and long term planning - I would be surprised if you or I could hack it at either job ! Farming has for a long time been this "mystery" - and afaik the debate is still ongoing. My understanding is that farming produces a regular "income" of calories, with a storage function - similar to the desire for SaaS based "subscription" income as opposed to one off sales - one is just psychologically "safer". On top of this you can then add the farming surplus, investment in static capital like buildings etc. My take is that it is a give and take between fixed buildings that offer protection from migrating tribes leads to giving up the following the herd which leads to fixed buildings which leads to grain storage which leads to ... references: looking up now

empiko 6y ago

I don't think this is a good analogy. Farming is in fact more difficult than foraging. You need all kinds of technologies to actually make it work (you need to seed, you need to take care of it, you need to harvest, you need to store, you need to process it properly). And on top of that, some of the activities are really back-breaking. Farming has now won because it was easier, but because it allows for bigger populations and bigger population means safety against other groups. Foragers are limited by the current amount of calories in the nature, which is not that high. This forces them to migrate, but migration limits the amount of young kids that you can have. A pair of hunter-gatherers would usually have kids every 4-5 years to that the youngest one can be carried and all the older ones can walk on their own. Farmers don't have to migrate so they can have a new kid every year (even though higher infant mortality will even this to some extent). In the end there is a hard limit on hunter-gatherer group size (tens of people), while farmers can scale their society to millions (as has happened in China fairly early on). When there is a conflict between these two groups (e.g. about who should use some land), it is easy to see who will win eventually.