Sapiens:
The Agricultural Revolution certainly enlarged the sum total of food at the disposal of humankind, but the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. Rather, it translated into population explosions and pampered elites. The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return. The Agricultural Revolution was history’s biggest fraud.2
Who was responsible? Neither kings, nor priests, nor merchants. The culprits were a handful of plant species, including wheat, rice and potatoes. These plants domesticated Homo sapiens, rather than vice versa. Think for a moment about the Agricultural Revolution from the viewpoint of wheat.
The body of Homo sapiens had not evolved for such tasks. It was adapted to
What then did wheat oʃer agriculturists, including that malnourished Chinese girl? It oʃered nothing for people as individuals. Yet it did bestow something on Homo sapiens as a species
No single step separated the woman gathering wild wheat from the woman farming domesticated wheat
Why did people make such a fateful miscalculation? For the same reason that people throughout history have miscalculated. People were unable to fathom the full consequences of their decisions. Whenever they decided to do a bit of extra work – say, to hoe the ɹelds instead of scattering seeds on the surface – people thought, ‘Yes, we will have to work harder. But the harvest will be so bountiful! We won’t have to worry any more about lean years. Our children will never go to sleep hungry.’ It made sense. If you worked harder, you would have a better life. That was the plan. The ɹrst part of the plan went smoothly. People indeed worked harder. But people did not foresee that the number of children would increase, meaning that the extra wheat would have to be shared between more children.
Then why didn’t humans abandon farming when the plan backɹred? Partly because it took generations for the small changes to accumulate and transform society and, by then, nobody remembered that they had ever lived differently.
Ted
http://millerbrian.com/stories-n-stuff/sapiens-a-brief-history-of-humankind-by-yuval-noah-harari
Alan Watts
Fight Club