From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu May 22 2003 - 19:55:58 MDT
--- gts <gts_2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
>
> > gts wrote:
> >> "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" (Agriculture)
> >> http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/diamondmistake.html
>
> > Let's not forget standing armies. Agriculture enabled people to
> > produce more food than they needed to feed themselves alone,
> enabling
> > the rise of a ruling class that subsisted off other people's work
> and
> > could force them to work 16-hour days to feed as many boss-class
> > individuals as possible.
>
> Yes, before agriculture there was no ruling class. Diamond covered
> this in
> the article I cite above. He summarizes his views in the last two
> paragraphs, from which I take this excerpt:
>
> "Archaeologists studying the rise of farming have reconstructed a
> crucial stage at which we made the worst mistake in human history.
> Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase
> food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation,
> warfare, and tyranny."
Warfare did not necessarily begin with plant based agriculture. One
should note that most of the most capable and successful barbarian
bands through history were always animal herders who conquered plant
farmers. Animal husbandry was likely the first form of 'agriculture' as
it resulted from raising and fattening the orphaned young of animals
preyed upon by early man. As this practice grew, and herds grew in
size, plant based agriculture probably initially started as a means of
growing sufficient feedstock for one's herd in one location for winter
use.
An animal herder would not suffer from the same sort of nutritional
deficiencies that Diamond ascribes to exclusively plant based farmer.
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.blogspot.com
Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/
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