Plethora Virgin 79

" Benefits, such as crime, disease, et cetera? Sure, if you like that stuff. " Ignoratio elenchi. I was instead giving computers as an example of a benefit. If you do not believe it is a benefit, I invite you to trash it before the debate ends :D. " If you asked the average worker if they would like to live a fairly easy, high quality life, and only work three hours a day, then I assure you, they would go for it." Not if you told them that the wage rates would cover food and... that's about it :D. Besides which, the "Average worker" is a disgusting example of a human being, as indicated by how they regularly vote to steal from their neighbors. Agriculture was not invented by the average man. It was invented by a series of exceptional geniuses, and therefore whether it is to be deemed a mistake depends on the standards of exceptional geniuses, not average men. "People were very happy with it for 90% of history." Oh? Have you polled the miserable starving wretches? Asked them to tell you if they were happy? "Hunter-gatherers in the Amazon have to walk very little, as their resources are so abundant." And most hunter gatherers are not in the Amazon. Do you know what their ancestors had to do to get there? They had to cross much of Asia, then North America, just to be even close :D. " Whoops, I don't actually know how that happened, here's the real source. http://www.environnement.ens.fr...... I forgot that part of the URL." And I note Monsieur Jared Diamond isn't leaving his beloved UCLA school of medicine out of his byline, which could not exist in the society describes, and isn't leaving for the Amazon. Obviously he knows something he isn't telling us. " This statistic is inaccurate, because even with this information often being from pre-contact, the issue is agriculture had arisen, and had driven the groups together, and allowed disease and warfare to spread. When groups are spread out, as they would and could be without agriculture, they would live longer." The very source indicates that scientific estimates of the lives of Neanderthals had TRIPLE the annual mortality rate of the sample. So this is clearly nonsense. " Funny. No, actually, Diamond's hypothesis is the opposite of that." Well, some actual studies indicate the opposite of that: http://www.telegraph.co.uk... By the way, Diamond's work indicate that agriculture led to a SHORT TERM drop in life expectancy by about 7 years (from the life expectancy that hadn't grown for most of human history). In the long term though, we happen to know it's led to an increase in life expectancy by nearly 50, with the Industrial revolution, that is impossible without agriculture. And, personally, the geniuses who invented agriculture were not the ones whose life expectancies were shortened by agriculture- they were the "Elites." Rather, the tribe members who typically pushed around those geniuses (bullying of smart people is as old as time) were the ones whose life expectancy was shortened, as with superior numbers those who allied with the geniuses could now fight back. Again, whether an action is to be considered beneficial depends upon the actor. "Also, everyone is not in poverty without agriculture, a !Kung man once said "Why switch to agriculture when the world has so many juju nuts?"" In America, or any other country that's taken the change to agriculture to it's logical conclusion with the industrial revolution the "Poor" not only typically get enough to eat... they also get much more. Juju nuts alone pale in comparison :D. "And if social inequality is okay, then you are fine with slavery and racism, which occurred because of agriculture?" Slavery and racism are not wrong because they are "Social inequality," the former is wrong because it involves initiation of physical force against an innocent, and the latter is wrong because it is irrational to believe one's identity is based on race. Their status as social inequality is incidental. Another example of social inequality is the fact that some people, unlike you, know how to build these computers you clearly like so much (yes, I'll beat you with that stick all day :D). " I concede the global warming point, but the war point is wrong, as I have shown. People had large areas and did not need to have contact with other tribes." Empirically you are wrong, as my source has shown. Deaths from violence accounted for far more deaths back then than today. And yes, some hunting grounds are better than others. If you hunt the same herd as another tribe, than, much like the predators you are imitating, that other tribe is a threat. A sufficient motive for war. Heck, CHIMPANZEES have wars. They don't have agriculture, or even a language, but they have wars. http://www.world-science.net... " No, they have everything they need to survive. That's all they need. They are well-off. " If they are good at hunting. And they don't survive very long, so that's not really true anyway. Modern "poor," in industrialized countries, who could not exist as they do without agriculture, typically have everything they need to survive if they are the modern equivalent of a "good hunter" (a minimally competent worker), survive MUCH longer than hunter gatherers, and, have many other things they don't need to survive on top of it. " There were no chiefs, they were egalitarians. " Uh, hello? Who enforces this communist notion of "egalitarianism" if not a chief? The chief might not be OFFICIALLY any different from other citizens... but he has bigger muscles, and you have to listen to him whether you like it or not. " Now, with agriculture, HG sucks. The resources have been too depleted. I would not recommend switching back to it. " According to your source, hunter gatherers do fine even with the land they've been relegated. :D