From a Darwinian perspective though agriculture vastly increased the population of humans. So as far as nature's inbuilt goal functions goes, it was an enormous

From a Darwinian perspective though agriculture vastly increased the population of humans. So as far as nature's inbuilt goal functions goes, it was an enormous win. Natural evolution doesn't optimize for hedonic well being. It optimizes for survival and growth. It's also possible that if we manage to cope with things like climate change, avoid self-inflicted disasters like nuclear war or bioterrorism, and adapt to resource constraints, we'll eventually end up on the other end of the post-industrial transition better off than we started ~15,000 years ago. If it does turn out that way it makes the whole period of agricultural and early industrial toil look like a kind of "fitness valley," a decline between two local maxima. In any case I don't think there's any going back. We have long ago passed the point at which reversion to a hunter-gatherer condition is politically, economically, and socially feasible. By the time large scale agricultural societies had standing armies it was pretty unlikely. I've long believed that we conclusively passed the point of no return at exactly 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_%28nuclear_test%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_%28nuclear_test%29 That's also where I plant the stake as the beginning of the Anthropocene epoch.