It would be preferable to live in a hunter-gatherer society rather than an agricultural one

Sorry that I have procrastinated this long, that's just my style. However, before I start my argument, I ask of my opponent this: *** On balance, it would be preferable to live in a prehistoric hunter-gatherer society rather than a prehistoric agricutural one. This is because those hunter-gatherer societies had a superior quality of life. I'm not going to lie and say that agriculture was the worst event that ever happened during human history, like one Mental_Floss magazine article once proclaimed. It brought about food surplusses, specialization, an explosion of people, and, eventually cities. However, there were a lot of disadvantages to being a farmer. First off, farming takes up a lot of time and energy to till the land, plant the seeds, water the crops, and harvest them. A lot of effort goes into farming a crop, which all could be wasted if there is a drought, a flood, or pestilence that could potentially destroy your crop. This is not something that is completely wonderful, especially since it has been argued that hunter-gatherer societies have more free time to do stuff like art or music. [1] When some natural disaster does not stifle one's yeild, there is, indeed plenty of food to go around. However, while there is increased quantity, there is decreased quality. Think about it. While agriculturalists can presumably trade for other suff than what they themselves create, their food sources are only limited to things that are being traded locally and are probably not spoiled already. This isn't the best. Statistics on human highth support this. Highth was dramatically cut from before the Neolithic revolution to after it. [2] Also, there have been suggestions that the length of an average human's life was shortened in the short tem. In addition, agriculture generally put one in close proximity to animals. Animals are known vectors of disease. And, from time to time, diseases cross over from animals to humans. While many humans built up an immunity to such diseases, many diseases (such as the Influenza and Measles viruses [3,4]) have crossed over from direct contact of animals, many of which were domesticated. Diseases, not only did not give us miserable days where we were achy and had a runny nose, diseases are killers which have killed boatloads of people over time. [5] Not only is there deficits for being a farmer, there are benefits for being a hunter-gatherer. For example. hunter-gatherer societies tend to be equal and egalitarian. In fact, it has been argued that this parity, including sexual equality, is a central tenant of hunter-gatherer societies. [6] There couldn't be a great and honored king which everybody gives tribute to without compromising the group as a whole in a hunter-gather company. All this points to one thing: prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies were preferable to live in rather than a prehistoric agricultural one. *** Excuse me for the absolute poorness (at least in the structure and shortness) of my arguments, I was epically procrastinating and ran down the time. I will attempt to make a better argument in the future, so that my opponent will have an actual debate. I thank him for the opportunity, though. *** Sources: [1] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [2]. http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] . http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... [5] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] . http://en.wikipedia.org...