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I'm conflicted by this article. I'm sympathetic to it, but some things just really push past my BS meter. For example: >This is related to why man became stunt

I'm conflicted by this article. I'm sympathetic to it, but some things just really push past my BS meter. For example: >This is related to why man became stunted with the dawn of agriculture. We traded a life limited by the occasional violent struggle over bountiful surplus for a more predictable life limited by grinding labor after barely sufficient nutrition. Firstly, "man" or humanity did all of their greatest work after the dawn of agriculture. Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful. It was short and harsh. It's easy to see something good and say "well we became complacent" - well, sure, we became complacent because life got better. There's a certain type of public intellectual in our society who says things that sort of intuitively feel like they should be right, but if you actually stop and think about the explanations, you soon realise they're talking rubbish. I don't even think the conclusion is necessarily wrong, I just think the parallel it is drawing is really bad.

slothtrop 5y ago
I often see anarchists romanticizing primitive society with revisionist ideas about conflict and quality of life.
- chana_masala 5y ago
  I've seen that too and agree. However to add some nuance as a somewhat anprim, the appeal to me is the raw simplicity of things and direct connection to so much of life. An analogy might be someone who is excited by writing assembly.
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    Speaking for myself, I've dreamed of simple labor when work gets frustrating, but I quickly tire and get bored of it when I do have it. In a state of "flow" however, there's no want for farm fantasies. The ideal for myself is a hobbyist means to work with my hands and turn my mind off - such as cooking, gardening. I think for people like myself, the back-to-nature pursuits are reactionary ideas to stress or bullshit jobs. The appeal is emotional. In truth I have no interest in subsistence lifestyle.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lordnacho 5y ago
Also, there have been plenty of violent struggles over agrarian society goods, eg land. The thing is like all "leap of faith" essays it falls down on faith. If it's a leap of faith why do you need to explain it? The essay boils down to "try a new things and don't worry about the consequences, you'll find a way". Which is a nice thing to think sometimes, but it's also worth your while to take considered bets. I do like the about blurb of the website though.
vindarel 5y ago
> Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful. It was short and harsh We all have a linear view of evolution: nomadism -> agriculture -> villages -> cities => for all the better. And we think life was really not fun before agriculture. Yet, some authors (especially in the recent years, with the progress of archeology) will note that things are maybe not so clear, and that's fascinating. With agriculture, man was (possibly) in a less good physical and spiritual shape (so, life would be harsher and shorter for peasants than for nomads). With agriculture and the concentration of people and animals, diseases spread, they ate a less diversified food, they had to fight periods of scarcity, they had a less diversified life, less rituals, things like that. We also know of tribes of nomads that joined in like summer, accumulated and shared big amounts of food, built monuments, and split again. Just to say maybe it wasn't scarcity all year long. Sources: Graeber, James C. Scott, Wengrow. Happy reading!
- slothtrop 5y ago
  > Just to say maybe it wasn't scarcity all year long. Society changed very slowly historically speaking, so yes, there may have been long stretches of peace just as there have been even much later in some parts of the world. However if we understand the purpose of the agricultural revolution to be producing more bodies for warfaring/conquest and consequently leading to the creation of bureaucracy and Civilization (as Fukuyama would argue), then the incentive for which would have been driven by a keen awareness of scarcity and a history of violent warfare. It would be no small coincidence however that this take fruit largely in the fertile crescent before expanding out. Agriculture did sprout in the Americas too for instance (and the strife associated with it), but it came later.
- apsurd 5y ago
  +1 "the dawn of everything" by Graeber is a lovely, fun, and inspiring read. it's because Graeber expands thinking on history. who is to say he's right? it's not about that, it's about realizing how much we think we know about history... that we really can't actually know. filling in the gaps is something people are great at doing. doesn't make it true though.
- chana_masala 5y ago
coldtea 5y ago
>Firstly, "man" or humanity did all of their greatest work after the dawn of agriculture. Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful. It was short and harsh. That's not exactly historically accurate.
wahnfrieden 5y ago
please catch up on the anthro research from the last 40 years to much more recently, your narrative of human progression is way off base and sorely out of date graeber’s new book, dawn of everything, is a good place to start
ebruchez 5y ago
> Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful. It was short and harsh. Not saying it's necessarily right or wrong, but Yuval Noah Harari, in his book "Sapiens", has a perspective on the transition of humanity to agriculture that echoes TFA (or vice versa). It struck me, when I read it, as an interesting perspective, as we do tend to see the move to agriculture as strictly positive.
- honkycat 5y ago
  Yuval Noah Harari clearly meant that tongue-in-cheech, not to be taken literally.
  - ebruchez 5y ago
    I'd say "clearly" not.
wyager 5y ago
Fossil records strongly suggest that life may have been a lot worse and less bountiful for early agriculturalists than contemporary non-agriculturalists.
- chii 5y ago
  Then where did the non-agriculturalists went? They either got killed by the surplus capacity of the agriculturalists, or joined them - both is rooted in the expanded capacity for food creation, and thus, technological creation.
  - wyager 5y ago
    One narrative is that the superior logistical capacity of agrarians gave them a military/reproductive/etc. advantage despite an inferior standard of living.
  - burntoutfire 5y ago
    It's quite possible that the worse solution won over the better one - i.e. agrarian societies, while having a lower standard of living, were much better at centralizing power/money and thus funding an army that would slowly stamp out the hunters-gatherers (or the nomadic shepherd societies later on).
nobody9999 5y ago
>Firstly, "man" or humanity did all of their greatest work after the dawn of agriculture. That's partly true. Learning to do agriculture was probably the most consequential thing humans have done -- as it let to the rise of towns and cities -- which have been the sources of innovation for millenia. >Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful. It was short and harsh. Actually, life has generally been "short and harsh" for almost all of human history and pre-history. In fact, it's only in the past ~150 years that average lifespans have been longer than 35 years[0] or so. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Variation_over_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Variation_over...
- thelettere 5y ago
  The "short and harsh" cliche is a gross generalization. High rates of infant mortality and childhood death skew the lifespan data such that for these that survive childhood the average lifespan is not so starkly different than ours (though there is a wide range depending on time and place). And the harsh thing also depends. The Kitavans for example are well documented to have lived moderately active lives with much leisure time and plenty of food. One tiny example of course but they are far from the only ones. So it depends.
goodpoint 5y ago
> humanity did all of their greatest work after the dawn of agriculture. Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful This narrative has been disproved again and again by modern anthropologists.

slothtrop 5y ago

I often see anarchists romanticizing primitive society with revisionist ideas about conflict and quality of life.

chana_masala 5y ago
I've seen that too and agree. However to add some nuance as a somewhat anprim, the appeal to me is the raw simplicity of things and direct connection to so much of life. An analogy might be someone who is excited by writing assembly.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  Speaking for myself, I've dreamed of simple labor when work gets frustrating, but I quickly tire and get bored of it when I do have it. In a state of "flow" however, there's no want for farm fantasies. The ideal for myself is a hobbyist means to work with my hands and turn my mind off - such as cooking, gardening. I think for people like myself, the back-to-nature pursuits are reactionary ideas to stress or bullshit jobs. The appeal is emotional. In truth I have no interest in subsistence lifestyle.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lordnacho 5y ago

Also, there have been plenty of violent struggles over agrarian society goods, eg land. The thing is like all "leap of faith" essays it falls down on faith. If it's a leap of faith why do you need to explain it? The essay boils down to "try a new things and don't worry about the consequences, you'll find a way". Which is a nice thing to think sometimes, but it's also worth your while to take considered bets. I do like the about blurb of the website though.

vindarel 5y ago

> Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful. It was short and harsh We all have a linear view of evolution: nomadism -> agriculture -> villages -> cities => for all the better. And we think life was really not fun before agriculture. Yet, some authors (especially in the recent years, with the progress of archeology) will note that things are maybe not so clear, and that's fascinating. With agriculture, man was (possibly) in a less good physical and spiritual shape (so, life would be harsher and shorter for peasants than for nomads). With agriculture and the concentration of people and animals, diseases spread, they ate a less diversified food, they had to fight periods of scarcity, they had a less diversified life, less rituals, things like that. We also know of tribes of nomads that joined in like summer, accumulated and shared big amounts of food, built monuments, and split again. Just to say maybe it wasn't scarcity all year long. Sources: Graeber, James C. Scott, Wengrow. Happy reading!

slothtrop 5y ago
> Just to say maybe it wasn't scarcity all year long. Society changed very slowly historically speaking, so yes, there may have been long stretches of peace just as there have been even much later in some parts of the world. However if we understand the purpose of the agricultural revolution to be producing more bodies for warfaring/conquest and consequently leading to the creation of bureaucracy and Civilization (as Fukuyama would argue), then the incentive for which would have been driven by a keen awareness of scarcity and a history of violent warfare. It would be no small coincidence however that this take fruit largely in the fertile crescent before expanding out. Agriculture did sprout in the Americas too for instance (and the strife associated with it), but it came later.
apsurd 5y ago
+1 "the dawn of everything" by Graeber is a lovely, fun, and inspiring read. it's because Graeber expands thinking on history. who is to say he's right? it's not about that, it's about realizing how much we think we know about history... that we really can't actually know. filling in the gaps is something people are great at doing. doesn't make it true though.
chana_masala 5y ago

coldtea 5y ago

>Firstly, "man" or humanity did all of their greatest work after the dawn of agriculture. Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful. It was short and harsh. That's not exactly historically accurate.

wahnfrieden 5y ago

please catch up on the anthro research from the last 40 years to much more recently, your narrative of human progression is way off base and sorely out of date graeber’s new book, dawn of everything, is a good place to start

ebruchez 5y ago

> Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful. It was short and harsh. Not saying it's necessarily right or wrong, but Yuval Noah Harari, in his book "Sapiens", has a perspective on the transition of humanity to agriculture that echoes TFA (or vice versa). It struck me, when I read it, as an interesting perspective, as we do tend to see the move to agriculture as strictly positive.

honkycat 5y ago
Yuval Noah Harari clearly meant that tongue-in-cheech, not to be taken literally.
- ebruchez 5y ago
  I'd say "clearly" not.

wyager 5y ago

Fossil records strongly suggest that life may have been a lot worse and less bountiful for early agriculturalists than contemporary non-agriculturalists.

chii 5y ago
Then where did the non-agriculturalists went? They either got killed by the surplus capacity of the agriculturalists, or joined them - both is rooted in the expanded capacity for food creation, and thus, technological creation.
- wyager 5y ago
  One narrative is that the superior logistical capacity of agrarians gave them a military/reproductive/etc. advantage despite an inferior standard of living.
- burntoutfire 5y ago
  It's quite possible that the worse solution won over the better one - i.e. agrarian societies, while having a lower standard of living, were much better at centralizing power/money and thus funding an army that would slowly stamp out the hunters-gatherers (or the nomadic shepherd societies later on).

nobody9999 5y ago

>Firstly, "man" or humanity did all of their greatest work after the dawn of agriculture. That's partly true. Learning to do agriculture was probably the most consequential thing humans have done -- as it let to the rise of towns and cities -- which have been the sources of innovation for millenia. >Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful. It was short and harsh. Actually, life has generally been "short and harsh" for almost all of human history and pre-history. In fact, it's only in the past ~150 years that average lifespans have been longer than 35 years[0] or so. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Variation_over_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Variation_over...

thelettere 5y ago
The "short and harsh" cliche is a gross generalization. High rates of infant mortality and childhood death skew the lifespan data such that for these that survive childhood the average lifespan is not so starkly different than ours (though there is a wide range depending on time and place). And the harsh thing also depends. The Kitavans for example are well documented to have lived moderately active lives with much leisure time and plenty of food. One tiny example of course but they are far from the only ones. So it depends.

goodpoint 5y ago

> humanity did all of their greatest work after the dawn of agriculture. Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful This narrative has been disproved again and again by modern anthropologists.