A hunter-gatherer economy is utterly incapable of supporting an advanced civilization. The very system of writing by which Jared promotes his ideas would never be developed without the surplus provided by agriculture. The most advanced economy possible without agriculture is that of our own NW coast. And there only because of uniquely favorable climate and other circumstances.
The article doesn’t mention the true reason agriculturists took over. Farming can support something like 500 to 1000 or more times the population. Any tribe that refused to adopt it was quickly overrun by their newly more numerous neighbors.
What you say is clearly true. However, don't you on occasions lean back and think, "Hmmm, a life of hunting and fishing, no yard to mow, no job to work at, just hunting and fishing . . . "
Which means that in a Darwinian context, the farmers became adapted better, more fit and survived.
The problem in Saudi Arabia is between the ultra conservative herders of the desert and the settled ag dependent cities. The same is true in Afghanistan
You’re absolutely right. The point he’s trying to make is that agriculture is a compromise. Quality of life was sacrificed for the sheer power of numbers.
Advanced civilization comes much much later (Thousands of years). Until very recently most people have been serfs, and have had a very poor quality of life.
Another point that he does not make, but I believe to be true, is that we would all be healthier if we ate a hunter gatherer diet. Meat, vegetables, fruits, NO grains.
Yeah, who immediately cut down the rain forest and caused global warming! :-)
In his book Connections, James Burke traces agriculture as such to the invention of irrigation rather than depending on seasonal floods. This led to individuals being able to produce more than they and their families could consume so they began to barter with others for the surplus. This led to numbers, mathematics and accounting. And so it went until here we are today with one progressive step leading to another and not always linear or expected.
It is an interesting book.
Of course if liberals, or progressives if they prefer, had their way we could trace our problems back to procreation. Without that none of our ills would exist. It is a biological fact that if your parents never had children you probably won't either.