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All the things you cite as the scary parts of life in the past were after the development of agriculture. The article (and my point) is that life for the averag

by rndmize 14y ago

All the things you cite as the scary parts of life in the past were after the development of agriculture. The article (and my point) is that life for the average person was better in the millenia prior to that. Indeed, the fact that life was so miserably for the people that built Giza or the Taj Mahal is precisely the point - hunter-gatherer tribes of a few hundred people never did such things. And my point about the endless hours making electronics is that if this is the best we can do for the majority of people in the world today, which is an improvement on the miserable times of earlier civilization/agricultural society, how pathetic is that compared to times of tribal societies when things were much more equal and life (on average) was much better? And I think you answer your own question about automation - our economic system is the reason we have people starving even when we have enough food to feed everyone. Automation won't change that by itself.

kamaal 14y ago
I don't its that plain black and white. The only reason why (we assume) pre agriculture hunter gatherer tribes to be well off is because they were not intelligently aware of their own selves. So no countries, no religions, no color based problems or whatever. Of course they didn't have medicines, shelter to protect themselves from epidemics that wiped out their whole tribes. Which I also think kept their population growth in check. Imagine getting your hand or a limb fractured then! Or catching dysentery. I am sure when things went fine, they went fine- The problem is basically when you get into a trouble which doesn't a solution at the present. Agriculture seems to be a inevitable step for any intelligent species to take if they want to live in organized ways like societies, states and countries. Its difficult to say what is better. Agriculture is basically is mass production of a basic element for survival called food .I would consider pharmaceutical companies as mass producers of another (now) basic necessity called health care. What ever you could say about agriculture you could also say about medicine.You could say people with cancer 1000 years back war far better off, at least they would just die instead of spending their life savings on fighting a disease they can't get cured off.
- rndmize 14y ago
  Not intelligently aware of themselves? In what way? There was little difference between what they knew and how they acted - there was their own tribe, and there were other tribes - and people today, where you can see cliques and groups naturally form in schools and elsewhere. > epidemics that wiped out their whole tribes. These things were supremely rare. As the article notes, the rise of death by disease at scale was a direct result of higher population and density, as well as likely poorer sanitary conditions. Let us presume a disease randomly shows up and infects a tribe, killing all of them. Now what? The disease dies out. In fact, our tribal nature is in effect a preventative measure against precisely this, as it causes most human societies to develop boundaries with each other. A deadly disease survives by spreading, which is a difficult thing to do in a world of tribal societies. > Which I also think kept their population growth in check. All animal populations are kept in control by basic ecology - when there's enough food to support a larger population, the population grows; when there is not, it does not. Humans are no different (until modern times with birth control/women empowerment/etc.) > Agriculture seems to be a inevitable step for any intelligent species to take if they want to live in organized ways like societies, states and countries. This is an interesting point. Agriculture has allowed larger societies (tribes are organized societies, and good ones), but not better ones (yet). I don't find this particularly surprising - a highly refined technology or method is almost always better than a newer one, even if the newer one eventually equals and surpasses it. The gun took hundreds of years to replace the sword, the car decades to replace the horse, and today we see new forms of energy production gradually moving to replace oil. Humans and developments in human society are no different - agriculture is the only way to support larger societies, but we have yet to correct for all the problems it brings that tribal societies had long since solved.

by rndmize 14y ago

kamaal 14y ago

I don't its that plain black and white. The only reason why (we assume) pre agriculture hunter gatherer tribes to be well off is because they were not intelligently aware of their own selves. So no countries, no religions, no color based problems or whatever. Of course they didn't have medicines, shelter to protect themselves from epidemics that wiped out their whole tribes. Which I also think kept their population growth in check. Imagine getting your hand or a limb fractured then! Or catching dysentery. I am sure when things went fine, they went fine- The problem is basically when you get into a trouble which doesn't a solution at the present. Agriculture seems to be a inevitable step for any intelligent species to take if they want to live in organized ways like societies, states and countries. Its difficult to say what is better. Agriculture is basically is mass production of a basic element for survival called food .I would consider pharmaceutical companies as mass producers of another (now) basic necessity called health care. What ever you could say about agriculture you could also say about medicine.You could say people with cancer 1000 years back war far better off, at least they would just die instead of spending their life savings on fighting a disease they can't get cured off.

rndmize 14y ago
Not intelligently aware of themselves? In what way? There was little difference between what they knew and how they acted - there was their own tribe, and there were other tribes - and people today, where you can see cliques and groups naturally form in schools and elsewhere. > epidemics that wiped out their whole tribes. These things were supremely rare. As the article notes, the rise of death by disease at scale was a direct result of higher population and density, as well as likely poorer sanitary conditions. Let us presume a disease randomly shows up and infects a tribe, killing all of them. Now what? The disease dies out. In fact, our tribal nature is in effect a preventative measure against precisely this, as it causes most human societies to develop boundaries with each other. A deadly disease survives by spreading, which is a difficult thing to do in a world of tribal societies. > Which I also think kept their population growth in check. All animal populations are kept in control by basic ecology - when there's enough food to support a larger population, the population grows; when there is not, it does not. Humans are no different (until modern times with birth control/women empowerment/etc.) > Agriculture seems to be a inevitable step for any intelligent species to take if they want to live in organized ways like societies, states and countries. This is an interesting point. Agriculture has allowed larger societies (tribes are organized societies, and good ones), but not better ones (yet). I don't find this particularly surprising - a highly refined technology or method is almost always better than a newer one, even if the newer one eventually equals and surpasses it. The gun took hundreds of years to replace the sword, the car decades to replace the horse, and today we see new forms of energy production gradually moving to replace oil. Humans and developments in human society are no different - agriculture is the only way to support larger societies, but we have yet to correct for all the problems it brings that tribal societies had long since solved.