Re: agriculture and the global brain (was: The mistake of agriculture)

From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri May 23 2003 - 18:45:43 MDT

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    --- Ramez Naam <mez@apexnano.com> wrote:
    > We've talked a lot about Jared Diamond here, but I think a great
    > perspective on this comes from Robert Wright. In _Non-Zero_ he
    > suggests that the most important effect of agriculture was to
    > increase
    > the information density of human populations. With greater
    > population
    > density and more people freed up from subsistence hunter gathering,
    > agricultural societies gave way to a degree of idea-creation and
    > idea-sharing not before possible.
    >
    > I like this analogy. In some ways, agriculture was (at first) a net
    > negative for the /individuals/ in agricultural societies, but a
    > positive for the societies as meta-individuals.

    Exactly. However, it is still very much the same. Look at most rugged
    individualists. They invariably either hunt, fish, or otherwise seek to
    recreate the 'noble savage' in their own lives as a means of renewing
    the individualist spirit. Look at any sort of socialist. They are
    invariably biased toward organized agriculture, toward social
    specialization and putting each individual into the proper brick form
    for their place in the wall. Any means of celebrating or empowering the
    individual is seen as criminal, immoral, wrong.

    >
    > I'd also note that even for individuals ancient societies had some
    > significant advantages. Life expectancy in HG societies is believed
    > to have been around 18 years. In ancient Rome it had gone up to
    > around 30 years. While nutrition might have been poorer,
    > agricultural
    > societies were capable of providing a higher and more consistent
    > caloric intake than HG societies. Agricultural societies were also
    > better at protecting their members against predators and, of course,
    > against other humans.

    Watch out when using life expectancy. If 90% of individuals die in
    childbirth, but those that survive live to 100, you still have a life
    expectancy of 10 years. Agricultural civilization enabled the storage
    of knowledge necessary to invent medical science and technologies of
    sanitation, which decreased infant mortality, and eliminated or reduced
    predation on humans.

    =====
    Mike Lorrey
    "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                                        - Gen. John Stark
    Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.blogspot.com
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