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Was civilization/agriculture even a good thing?

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Life was much worse even 100 years ago.
100 years ago was much worse than 200 years ago.
200 years ago was much worse than 100 years before that.

This is the safest, cleanest, healthiest, most prosperous time for any generation of our species that has ever lived on the planet Earth.
 
i would love to disagree but knowing what we're doing to the climate.. yep, we fucked up royally. i honestly think it's way too late to fix too. we missed our window of opportunity despite decades of warning from the wise among us. we deserve the chaos that is coming.

now it's time to go out with a bang, let's consume like crazy and have fun while we still can! no point in wallowing in self-pity, then everyone loses.

i'm half-serious.
 
I'd love to see people who argue that we would be better off as a hunter gatherer civilization identify which segments of the global population should cease to exist.

It seems that the only people who argue that we were better off before agriculture are first world academics who never have to worry about growing hungry.
 
Kristoffer said:
Life was much worse even 100 years ago.
100 years ago was much worse than 200 years ago.
200 years ago was much worse than 100 years before that.

This is the safest, cleanest, healthiest, most prosperous time for any generation of our species that has ever lived on the planet Earth.
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Yep, every year life on average gets better by practically every single metric.
 
The combination of climate change along with soil erosion/land degradation is definitely a problem now and in the future
But that's going to require some lifestyle changes.
 
djkeem said:
The combination of climate change along with soil erosion/land degradation is definitely a problem now and in the future
But that's going to require some lifestyle changes.
Click to expand...

My whole point is that humans would be doing a lot less damage if they didn't civilize, but I guess that's too much of an unpalatable viewpoint for GAF to swallow
 
Who said:
My whole point is that humans would be doing a lot less damage if they didn't civilize, but I guess that's too much of an unpalatable viewpoint for GAF to swallow
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Virtually nothing is perfect. But we've weighed the pros and cons and most people think civilization is worth the trade off. That much should be self evident, because otherwise civilization wouldn't have subsisted.
 
liliththepale said:
Virtually nothing is perfect. But we've weighed the pros and cons and most people think civilization is worth the trade off. That much should be self evident, because otherwise civilization wouldn't have subsisted.
Click to expand...

How I see modern times: an overpopulation of humans based off of finite resources = bad. We may be living good now but I don't see how our luxurious first-world lives can continue for much longer before we face some serious consequences.
 
Who said:
My whole point is that humans would be doing a lot less damage if they didn't civilize, but I guess that's too much of an unpalatable viewpoint for GAF to swallow
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"Damage" is subjective. Earth has suffered much, much greater "damage" from many other things, and the climate has shifted in far, far more violent ways over the course of the planet's history. We are a blip in geological history. If we all vanished tomorrow, 99% of all evidence of our existence would be gone within 100,000 years.

All the "damage" being done is going to impact us, not the planet. The notion that change is damage is an inherently anthropocentric view, far more than a view that sees civilization as a positive thing. It shouldn't be "Save the Earth," it should be "Save the Humans." If worse comes to worst regarding climate change and other human-driven changes on the planet, we're the ones who will suffer, along with whatever other animal species we may take down with us. Should humanity really extinguish itself, Earth, and billions of non-human life forms who survive the changes wrought by humanity, will spin on.
 
Who said:
My whole point is that humans would be doing a lot less damage if they didn't civilize, but I guess that's too much of an unpalatable viewpoint for GAF to swallow
Click to expand...

Why do you think nature inflicting mass slaughter and genocide on humanity is morally better and superior to humans doing it? And nature is a much more effective killer than humanity could ever hope to be. Plus, without civilization, our standards of living would have never have increased
 
civmistake0mql9.jpg
 
Who said:
My whole point is that humans would be doing a lot less damage if they didn't civilize, but I guess that's too much of an unpalatable viewpoint for GAF to swallow
Click to expand...

Yeah dude you're just a bold maverick who doesn't play by the rules.

You haven't done the work to investigate and flesh out your premises. In one scenario humans are just the passive recipients of harm caused by the environment. In the other scenario we're active agents that enact greater harm on our environment, but have some capacity for self determination. In my opinion having a capacity for self-determination seems favourable, at least we have the potential to adapt and change. If this is all you're basing your notion on, I don't see where the pull is supposed to come from. Why is your scenario plainly favourable? Actually do some work to explain that, people are receptive to actual arguments.
 
Who said:
How I see modern times: an overpopulation of humans based off of finite resources = bad. We may be living good now but I don't see how our luxurious first-world lives can continue for much longer before we face some serious consequences.
Click to expand...

So that's what you should have asked. You should have asked if it's sustainable, not if it's good. Because by your own admission it's good.
 
Have you answered an ad in the paper posted by a gorilla named Ishmael whose looking for a pupil to pass his knowledge?

Maybe this was already pointed out but between the topic and avatar this feels like a stealth plug for the novel Ishmael.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(novel)

"There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will act as the lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now."
 
TwEE-N-Toast said:
Have you answered an ad in the paper posted by a gorilla named Ishmael whose looking for a pupil to pass his knowledge?

Maybe this was already pointed out but between the topic and avatar this feels like a stealth plug for the novel Ishmael.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(novel)

"There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will act as the lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now."
Click to expand...

Not gonna lie, that book had a lot of impact on my world views. Good call, dude
 
Who said:
How I see modern times: an overpopulation of humans based off of finite resources = bad. We may be living good now but I don't see how our luxurious first-world lives can continue for much longer before we face some serious consequences.
Click to expand...

What resources are you worried about running out? After that question, then you need to ask yourself is there a technological replacement for that material. If yes, why is that a serious consequence, then? If no, is it likely that a new technological advancement will come up with a replacement, and if it is unlikely, then what are the consequences of that.

As for the ideas and questions you brought up in this thread, well, I don't think you have fully thought out your ideas on any of your points.
 
Htown said:
You just shared your ridiculous thoughts with people who are laughing at you from the other side of the planet, and it happened basically instantly. You did that using a complex system of writing that wouldn't exist if everyone still had to hunt and gather. You live in a world where more people have decent access to food and basic medical care than ever before.

Of course it's better that people can grow food and can have societies and science and music and literature, and anything besides a fucking pile of dirt and a sharp stick and a scratch on a cave wall, and of course it's good that we have advanced in the last ten thousand years. Are you high?

This thread is maybe the stupidest thing I hae seen in the twenty years I have been on the internet, holy shit.
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I don't have time to read this entire thread to see if it was mentioned already, but I think that poverty gap between developing countries and developed sort of masks the fact that even most of the poorer people in the world have more wealth and better health than pretty much everyone a few thousand years ago.

Plus, the carrying capacity of the entire planet would be about 100 million humans if we went back to hunter-gatherer societies. Sorry to the other 98.5% of humanity that exists at present thanks to agriculture and the technology boom it enabled. OP thinks the world would be better without you.
 
Who said:
How I see modern times: an overpopulation of humans based off of finite resources = bad. We may be living good now but I don't see how our luxurious first-world lives can continue for much longer before we face some serious consequences.
Click to expand...

Malthusianism was proven wrong a long, long time ago
 
Who said:
Damn. It was only a matter of time. Look, I have a lot of free time and a degree in stone-cutting, how else is an average Ohio dude expected to spend his time
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Hobbies, socializing, even watching Netflix.

This topic went from annoying to depressing.
 
Kristoffer said:
Life was much worse even 100 years ago.
100 years ago was much worse than 200 years ago.
200 years ago was much worse than 100 years before that.

This is the safest, cleanest, healthiest, most prosperous time for any generation of our species that has ever lived on the planet Earth.
Click to expand...

You should read that again because it doesn't make any sense. Also, I would say 100 years ago was as shitty as the centuries before because of WWI and Spanish flu.
 
Kristoffer said:
Life was much worse even 100 years ago.
100 years ago was much worse than 200 years ago.
200 years ago was much worse than 100 years before that.
Click to expand...

I don't really agree with this. I think it's important for people to realize that the past wasn't constantly getting better. By a lot of metrics in Western Europe 1800 was worse than 1700, just like 1600 was worse than 1500. Only with the advent of Industrialization, and with it stability of enlightenment ideas, has growth in Core Regions been consistently positive. I don't doubt that we are better off now than people on average were in 1800 or that they were better off than humans in 10,000 B.C., but thinking that the past has always progressed towards a positive future strikes me as dangerously Hegelian.
 
Cocaloch said:
I don't really agree with this. I think it's important for people to realize that the past wasn't constantly getting better. By a lot of metrics in Western Europe 1800 was worse than 1700, just like 1600 was worse than 1500. Only with the advent of Industrialization, and with it stability of enlightenment ideas, has growth in Core Regions been consistently positive. I don't doubt that we are better off now than people on average were in 1800 or that they were better off than humans in 10,000 B.C., but thinking that the past has always progressed towards a positive future strikes me as dangerously Hegelian.
Click to expand...

But it has, there may be localized pockets throughout history where that is not the case due to political instability or natural disasters(mainly famines and disease), but if you look at the worldwide average, its a one way trend.

Also even during those localized 'backwards' periods, progress still keeps ticking along. Like the European 'dark ages', sure some things were lost when the roman empire retreated from western Europe, but for the average European during that time period, things just kept improving.

Which is not to say that this progress will always keep moving, but the whole reason we have made so much progress in such a short time period(and ~10,000 years is a split second on evolutionary time scales), is entirely because we left the natural hunter gatherer state and became specialists that are interdependent because we could not survive alone in nature.
 
iamblades said:
But it has, there may be localized pockets throughout history where that is not the case due to political instability or natural disasters(mainly famines and disease), but if you look at the worldwide average, its a one way trend.

Also even during those localized 'backwards' periods, progress still keeps ticking along. Like the European 'dark ages', sure some things were lost when the roman empire retreated from western Europe, but for the average European during that time period, things just kept improving.

Which is not to say that this progress will always keep moving, but the whole reason we have made so much progress in such a short time period(and ~10,000 years is a split second on evolutionary time scales), is entirely because we left the natural hunter gatherer state and became specialists that are interdependent because we could not survive alone in nature.
Click to expand...

In what ways did the average peasant's life improve during the dark ages? I am kinda curious because I am not quite sure how you could make that case until about 1000 AD
 
Who said:
I think the same applies today unfortunately
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You don't have to be rich to live a good life today. I sure as hell am not rich, and I'm typing this on my flagship Apple iPhone 6+, drinking a bottle of clean Perrier sparkling water, while sitting in air conditioning.
 
One of the interesting questions of human history is why we turned to settled agriculture. Hunter gatherers had an easier life than the first farmers. Staying in one place and raising food was way more work. The Paleolithic hunter gatherers probably had tons of free time. No video games to play though.
 
Who said:
How I see modern times: an overpopulation of humans based off of finite resources = bad. We may be living good now but I don't see how our luxurious first-world lives can continue for much longer before we face some serious consequences.
Click to expand...

That's because as a finite resource starts to run out the incentive for finding a new one grows. Take oil for example. Demand was high enough that it became worth it to dig deeper and go after hard to reach oil and now it's cheap and we have tons of it. Now look at water. We are starting to feel a pinch in some areas. Eventually demand for water will become great enough that desalination is viable and new ways to desalinate will be invented. Then we will have a fuck ton of it. It's simple economics. Humanity has survive much worse. The Black Death wiped out an average of 50% of Europe's population. It varies by location. But it survived and perhaps even thrived because of it when a labor shortage allowed for peasants to command demand more and then collapsed feudalism. I guess you're just going to have to be okay with people dying for your benefit since that's what it's like whether you kill the rival tribe for a food source or kill half of Europe to set the stage for modernity. Sometimes you stand on the shoulders of giants and sometimes you stand on the bones of giants. Either way, you're higher up.
 
Suffering and merciless are human constructs. Nature doesn't give a fuck. At any given moment millions of creatures are having horrible, slow and painful deaths at the jaws of their predators. I will refrain from posting the gifs.

Also, some life form suddenly thriving, covering most of the planet and changing everything happens all the time along the course of history. We are not the first. Plants wrecked havoc when they started doing photosynthesis, for example.
 
HerbertBirdsfoot said:
One of the interesting questions of human history is why we turned to settled agriculture. Hunter gatherers had an easier life than the first farmers. Staying in one place and raising food was way more work. The Paleolithic hunter gatherers probably had tons of free time. No video games to play though.
Click to expand...

I would guess it's a question of stability. You can depend in agriculture more than hunting/gathering. If I remember from one of my classes, Japan had a different path during it's development where, during the Jomon period, the inhabitants were sedentary hunter gatherers with some of the oldest known instances of pottery. These characteristics are mostly of agricultural societies.
 
iamblades said:
But it has, there may be localized pockets throughout history where that is not the case due to political instability or natural disasters(mainly famines and disease), but if you look at the worldwide average, its a one way trend.

Also even during those localized 'backwards' periods, progress still keeps ticking along. Like the European 'dark ages', sure some things were lost when the roman empire retreated from western Europe, but for the average European during that time period, things just kept improving.

Which is not to say that this progress will always keep moving, but the whole reason we have made so much progress in such a short time period(and ~10,000 years is a split second on evolutionary time scales), is entirely because we left the natural hunter gatherer state and became specialists that are interdependent because we could not survive alone in nature.
Click to expand...

Well you're essentially just arguing the opposite of what I'm saying so we don't have much to go on without bringing in sources. I'm wondering why you think that though? I'm going off the crisis/stabilization/boom model, along North or perhaps De Vries' lines. Perhaps that's where our differences lie, as economically speaking it's really hard to see constant progress instead of this boom/bust cycle that oscillates around, to borrow from Wrigley, an organic carrying capacity. Put another way I think its incredibly hard to argue for constant or even trending economic growth before 1800 in Britain, let alone the rest of the world.

I think you're actually even harder pressed to argue for progress when it comes to other factors, but that's too much of a value judgement to really get into arguing for or against at the moment.

Either way such thinking, even if it is ultimately correct, is not particularly helpful to looking at the past and ends up usually leading to teleological thinking.
 
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