Environmental Thought in Antiquity

I believe the hunter-gather life could have remain if not for the lure of the farmer's abundance which was a misguided facade. And for those that did not choose an agricultural life style eventually their land would become the farmers. Furthermore, the three reasons why Diamond's finds agricultural was bad for our health explains the snowball effect. We can literally see the effects of his reasoning today.   

Another unintended consequence that came from agricultural communities was the spread of disease. Farming created an increase in population density which made it easier for diseases spread. As stated in the article, "epidemics couldn't take hold when populations were scattered in small bands that constantly shifted camp". The growth in population also created class divisions. When farmers began living off of livestock and crops it created a surplus in food storage. This means that whoever owned the most land had more power over others. 

In Jared Diamond’s “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race,” the writer argues that the transition from “foraging to farming” was a decision that seemed necessary at the time, but ultimately changed the course of their lives for the next thousands of years. It is shown that after this transition, life expectancy went down, the average height and weight decreased, and disease and malnutrition increased among other negative effects. Diamond also makes the controversial argument that people took up farming as a necessary action to feed the growing population-- they did not even prefer it to hunting. This argument is highly debated and seems crazy to us now who would never think to go and hunt our food sources everyday, but it makes sense for the society in which this transition took place.

One aspect of this reading that makes me question the validity of Diamond’s argument is the time frame. At the end of the chapter, Diamond explains that if the history of mankind was condensed to a 24 hour period, we are just now to the end of our first day, and people did not start relying on crops for food until a few minutes ago. If this is the case, I pose the question, “was changing to reliance on agriculture for food a mistake, or have we just not figured it out yet?” At least 23 hours of hunting on this metaphorical mankind clock compared to the one hour of agriculture means that it is likely that it took them some time to truly figure out the healthiest ways to hunt and gather. Strategies and technology continue to grow and develop over time, as I am sure they did with the hunters as well. I think that Diamond’s argument seems valid, but the time comparisons do not allow for assumptions to be made just yet.

I also was intrigued by Diamond's assessment of the sacrifice of quality of resources in favor of quantity (Cohen, qtd. in Diamond 97). This trend has also increased significantly since the introduction of agriculture, as evidenced by the notably low quality of fast food in the US. Because fatty, processed foods are so easy to mass-produce nowadays, the malnutrition of early agriculture and of modern impoverished nations has given way to obesity in many industrial civilizations. Regardless of the size of an individual in either of these societal types, the need to create large quantities of food is responsible for death and decreased health in all cases, and the longer this societal model persists, the more people will be affected by one poor diet or another.

Finally, Diamond suggests that agriculture was created to accommodate an increasing group size  in hunter-gatherer societies (97). Could these societies not have mediated group size by simply splitting in two? How would this have affected the way the world looks nowadays?

In Jared Diamond's article he reflects on the way that agriculture has changed our lives and affecting us for the worst. He suggests that we do not see our resources as sacred and we don't view them as important because we are not the ones having to hunt and gather our resources instead we rely on agriculture to give us our food and therefore we have no connection to what we are doing adn the affects things have on the Earth.

Jared Diamond’s “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race” encourages thought-provoking questions regarding the implementation of agriculture in modern society. By closely comparing the original hunter-gathering means of obtaining food to the agriculturally rich life we know presently, I would have never known the limits a farming-dependant life entails. Farming was originally popularized by the exponentially growing populations at the time, and it allowed for a safe and reliable means of food. Upon comparing the two lifestyles, factors such as lessened average height, bone diseases, class divisions, and even sexual inequality resulted from the transition to an agricultural dependant society. Diamond’s account of the hunter-gathering groups that still exist today depicts their eating habits and lifestyle in general as efficient and admirable. Diamond successfully points out the drawbacks of agriculture as means of food by painting an intriguing picture of efficiently surviving through hunting and gathering. While life back then may have been better in some ways, I hold that the incorporation of agriculture in society and was necessary for the growth of knowledge, experience, and quality of living, but most importantly the advancement of society as a whole.

            Although hunting and gathering has many tempting benefits, I fear any large-scale transition to such a primitive lifestyle will only bring ecological depletion and human divergence. With the addition of a few billion more people to the planet, any competition for a vital component of living will bring chaos to a typically enjoyable task. Aside from the human toll hunting and gathering would place on society, more importantly, I am concerned for the tall expectations that would be placed upon the plants and animals we reside amongst. Our earth simply cannot provide for its non-human residents along with a few billions of people attempting to survive off of its resources alone. The hunter-gathering lifestyle hinges completely on Earth’s provisions, which, in this case, I would not be surprised if it almost entirely depleted the earth of its “renewable” resources. While it is unlikely we will regress to strictly relying on human’s aptness to scavenge for such a universal necessity such as food, the implications are scary to think about. Thankfully advancements in dietary and human survival knowledge allow our diet to be balanced and widely distributed without a personal or smaller group dependant lifestyle.

Hunting and Gathering’s Surprising Benefits and Eventual Downfalls.docx

When reading Diamond's article on mankind's mistake of transitioning from hunter gatherer to an agrarian society, the topic of their leisure time stood out. The idea that these groups of hunters spent all hours of the day getting food seems  like an impossible lifestyle for anyone to have, and it makes much more sense for their skills to be sufficient enough to feed a small group easily for the majority of the time (96). Just because these groups may not have had the ability, resources, or willingness to make massive long lasting monuments doesn't mean that a rich culture didn't exist in other ways within their respective communities(98). 

When thinking on how hunter gather societies probably lived their lives it reminds me a lot of Epicureanism. While the societies may not have focused on hedonism like Epicurus did, the way that they most likely spent time would align with his ideas on how to pursue pleasure. These societies probably lived very moderately, did not have any artificial desires, and had emphasis on friendship within their community. While I don't believe these hunter gathers probably thought about the universe like Epicurus did, their culture was without a doubt rich on ideas about the world.