From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu May 22 2003 - 17:20:03 MDT
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."
-gts
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