Lifestyle Choices

I was perusing National Geographic the other day (I read it for the articles, really) and I came across an interesting quote. It was from Jared Diamond (#42 on this list), who has written some enjoyable books. It was relayed in the NG article like this:

Jared Diamond, the UCLA professor and writer, has called the adoption of agriculture nothing less than "the worst mistake in human history"—a mistake, he suggests, from which we have never recovered.

The author of this piece, Michael Finkel, lays out some of the argument for this:

The Hadza [a Tanzanian hunter-gatherer people] do not engage in warfare. They've never lived densely enough to be seriously threatened by an infectious outbreak. They have no known history of famine... The Hadza diet remains even today more stable and varied than that of most of the world's citizens. They enjoy an extraordinary amount of leisure time. Anthropologists have estimated that they "work"—actively pursue food—four to six hours a day.

I have thought at times that it would have been enjoyable to be a Plains Indian in the early 19th century. Riding horses, hunting, fighting non-lethal battles with other tribes, lounging around, etc. would have been my daily activities. The leisure aspect of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is indeed enviable.

Some of the benefits of the agricultural lifestyle and everything it spawned, on the other hand, are as follows:

• Longer life expectancy, better medical care, lower infant mortality
• All kinds of comforts and conveniences (house, car, air conditioning, etc.)
• Access to technology (for work, travel, leisure)
  

The switch to agriculture was inevitable, because societies that did so were able to outgrow and subsequently dominate hunter-gatherers. But Diamond posits a provocative suggestion that is interesting to consider.