Agriculture: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race

The switch to agriculture is often regarded as a great decision, but is it all it's cracked up to be?

I'll be at VidCon! If you see me, say hi! Hope to see y'all there.

WORKS CITED:

GEAR:

Thanks to Albin Engström, Chance Snow, Crispian Thorne, Dave Bell, DigitalDorn, Gerhard Blab, Hamza, Hermes Higashino, Jack, Jason Spriggs, Jenny Messer, Joost Lawerman, Kevin McKain, Luke Armstrong, Marijn Kuypers, NeonTiger, Nigel Airey (steelerboiy), Olle Kelderman, Paul Ginsherman, Reid Fishler, Rene Miklas, Ronald Leppers, Ryan Fowler-Hughes (dat1gui69), Scott Robinson, Spencer Steckman, Timothy Zorn, and Trygve Vea for being Patrons!

Made with love by Alex Nickel.
//Technicality Episode 66//

[technicality]

I’m gonna be at VidCon this week! I’m totally psyched to see all of my YouTube friends as well as all of you.


Aaaaand if you enjoyed this video, it means a ton if share it on social media; that’s super helpful in helping the channel grow. Thanks y’all!

[joseduarte]

"Big city means diseases, and lots of them, and spreading very quickly" Oh boy

[austinkreulach]

I disagree. In all honesty, I think many of these statistics are misleading. Take, for example, the stat given for free time. A farmer spends more time per day farming than a hunter-gatherer spends hunt-gathering. Sure. That does not mean the average person in a hunter-gatherer society has more free time than the average person in a farming society, because one farmer can support more people than a single hunter-gatherer can. That support ratio is what makes agriculture lead to more specialization than the alternative, not farmers doing pottery in their spare time.

According to a bit of light reading on hunter-gatherer bands [Play makes us human], it seems most of them had some similarities that also contradict the hunter-gatherers specialize bit. They learned how to contribute as children by playing at work, until it became productive and they did whatever they felt like. That is, almost everyone was trained in almost every job. Not everyone spent every day finding food, but you wouldn't find a dedicated tool-maker. It was only with the development of food storage that the economy became sufficiently developed to allow a dude to just sit around making pots or horseshoes. Rather, they were always allowed, but now they have to.

Also something about farming allowing greater populations, plus currency and locks allowing for groups larger than trust would allow. Thus denser populations allowing for more specialized roles, and something something innovation spiral. I'm already embarrassed about this comment.

tl;dr: agriculture was completely necessary for specialization and (most) innovation.

But aside from being defensive about my precious modern computer and arguing against everything after the six-minute mark, solid video my dude. It's a good point to raise about the ultimate form of nostalgia and the very strange facts about how life actually was when we first made the switch. It was a pretty awful decision in a lot of ways for a lot of people, until it very slowly wasn't.

[royalninja]

"But that specialization (and anime) makes it all worth it!"
I love the silly humor you put into your videos!

[Ichihiro]

I'm staunchly anti-neolithic, have been for over 30 years. I understand that agrarian life isn't all bad, the choice was one of trade offs.

[georgecataloni]

Problems with your argument:
1) Hunters and gatherers primarily relied on starchy tubers.
2) Potatoes are also starch.
3) Taxation didn't exist until generations after people decided to farm.

[runechuckie]

An even bigger problem than those listed in video: the fact we till soil on a mass scale releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gases + the ratio at which the topsoil is depleted of built up nutrients to how long it takes nutrients to build up again with roughly 90% loss of organic matter from the previous years growth (the food grown including stalks, extra leaves & root systems). This is more a new trend but it will help prevent erosion, help promote faster regeneration of farmland topsoil & slow the greenhouse gas emissions we release each year :) food for thought!!!

[TransItAuthority]

Not to mention that the agricultural revolution might have caused the first wave of significant anthropogenic climate change.
Source: "The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era Began Thousands of Years Ago" by William F. Ruddiman, Published in the journal Climate Change in December of 2003

[saybervoltz]

“People in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence, however, is corrupted by the evils of society.“- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss Philosopher

[biomuseum]

Thank god someone finally doesn’t see progress as all universal and linear
We can’t go back to the past, but we can value it a bit more and maybe make some advances not by adding but by removing stuff

[rparl]

Forgot the title, but there was a set of SF books where we got linked to a parallel Earth, where neanderthals have a complex hunter gatherer society.

[PedalingPrince]

You, sir, are a prime example of the best all this new technology can bring out in our species. You use it the way the people created it originally envisioned it, to enrich not only yourself but everyone you can reach with it. I can remember being as young as you, and I only hope I would've used this technology as well as you have had I had it when I was your age. 👍

[debries]

The issue with labeling the switch to agriculture as a choice is the near absolute conversion of people across the globe to farmers. Wherever conditions were right (the Chinese river delta, the Indus valley, the Nile, etc.) we see a sudden adoption of farming around 5-6 thousand years ago.

This, to me, seems to indicate a very strong and very sudden change of the status quo. It could very well have been that our ancestors were growing in such numbers that they simply outpaced the natural capacity, and were forced to switch to farming.

[jadynbeech]

WHY DID I FIND THIS *AFTER* I FAILED MY HISTORY TEST???

[JazzJackrabbit]

Ah yes, the glorious life expectancy of Hunter-gatherers! 26 whole years!

Our own life expectancies of 80+ years, limitless food supply, state-of-the-art medicine and modern transportation surely can't compete!!

[amaliaanhalt]

This was a really interesting video, love the way you incorporated little bits of humor while keeping it informational :)

[goingfreenow]

Lol, sometimes I wonder if our whole history was a mistake. I would not rely on something I don't have knowledge about but farming or homesteading is what helped my folk survive. One would cultivate the land, and to see food ready for harvest is just what insured our survival along with fishing (but there was minimal government as well). So it was the a financial profit or capitalizing was the negative. But I am being realistic, I am not going to rely on something that may have been centuries and centuries ago and I will fall back on farming/homesteading for the survival.

[Puddsbrudda]

Farming, destroying the fertility of the land.

[Mark-pdeb]

Nice to have another video as always...you came back with a bang! Just also wanted to say thanks for having my comments in your video's as well as answering my questions during the livestream. Funny thing...your wifi crahsed as you were responding to my last question. Learning new things vs. Teaching cool things. Would you care to finish the response ?...lol Thanks dude.

[joel_castle]

God Bless your soul, Alex Nickel
Because I had to write an essay about the article you are talking about
You provide a good outline of the article and thank for the making of this video
I too am a high freshman reading that article and am Houston Community College dual credit student
Thank so much you.