Summary Of Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race By Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond makes a compelling case for why “the adoption of agriculture was in many ways a catastrophe” in his 1987 Discover Magazine article “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race,” however I am not convinced. An Agricultural Revolution is a “significant change in agriculture that occurs when there are discoveries, inventions, or new technologies that change production” (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2015) and the development of agriculture has been a fundamental part of the march of civilization. The Agricultural Revolution was not a catastrophe from which we have never recovered, it was the groundwork for the rise of civilization.
Cynthia Stokes Brown, author of Big History- From The Big Bang To The Present states
that “Hunter-gatherers, sometimes called foragers, lived in small groups large enough to defend themselves and divide tasks yet small enough not to exhaust food supplies within walking distance” (Brown, 2012). If the advancement due to the agricultural revolution never took place, humans would still be scouring for food. This is incredibly important to remember when thinking upon the benefits of the agricultural revolution. Would we, as a society still be living like nomads? Would we still continue to be hunter-gatherers? What type of advancement if any, would have taken place had the agricultural revolution not existed? “These groups led a primarily nomadic life, moving from site to site as animals moved or plants were consumed” (Brown, 2012). How would this type of life take place in modern day- 2017? The answer is, it would not have. With the continuous rising population, how would our society continue to grow and develop with the nomadic lifestyle? This would be impossible. Our society would be unable to sustain- much less thrive with the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. If the gatherer’s never came up with the idea of planting the seeds of berries, we would still be moving from site to site once our berries were gone. The planting of the seeds and berries was the first time in our history which farming started. The intention of early day farming was to work less while getting more. As well as being able to stay in one place, and not have the worries of what happens next or where to go once the berries were gone.
A key benefit which arose from the Agricultural Revolution came the advancement of speech and language.
“Experts feel certain that hunter-gatherers were speaking with each other in some kind of language” (Brown, 2012). This development of language occurred due to the fact that the hunter-gatherers had to develop some sort of speech in order the effectively communicate. In these small sites which they lived, everyone had to do their fair share in order to accommodate the needs of their growing groups. This did not just mean in regards to the actual acts of hunting and gathering. This has to do with their lifestyle and all aspects of it. Women would ensure that they had children at least four years apart. This is because with this nomadic lifestyle, they did not have a place to call home. They were continuously on the move once their hunting and gathering became barren. Women could not care for several children while holding up their responsibilities for their group. Not only this, but schedules were not a thing that hunter-gatherers had to adhere to. They choose when and what time they were going to continue their duties. Sometimes, hunter’s would leave for weeks at a time. This meant when they finally came back to their current site they would stay for as long as they wanted until thy had to go back and hunt again. This type of lifestyle just would not be possible for our populations to continue to grow successfully as they do today. What do we have to thank for success of our society?
Advancement.
The advanced society we live in today would not be possible without the Agricultural Revolution. Despite the disadvantages that followed, the Agricultural Revolution set the stage for all the innovations that were to come. The shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture was ultimately necessary to the rise of modern civilization by creating the foundation for the later process of industrialization and sustained economic growth (Weisdorf, 2005). Hunter-gatherer populations were too few and the endogenous growth theory says economic growth is the result of endogenous and not external forces (proceeding from within) (n.d.). Farming supported larger populations, which produced greater ideas and technological advances, which support even larger populations and so on (Marchelletta, 2016).
At the core of agriculture is innovation. Advancements in agricultural technology throughout the past century have allowed farmers to feed a population that has grown from less than 2 billion people to more than 7 billion today (Adams, 2016). The Agricultural Revolution began as more people spread across the land, game resources in favorable regions declined and hunters/gatherers were required to formulate another method to keep themselves fed (“AP human geography - the First agricultural revolution,” n.d.). The work required for producing food of course requires more hands; consequently farming communities had more children. “These developments in agriculture over time brought the formation of more organized and permanent communities, such as villages, towns, and cities” (n.d.).

The long term effects of the First Agricultural Revolution transformed over time, including, “the reallocation of land ownership to make farms more compact and an increased investment in technical improvements, such as new machinery, better drainage, scientific methods of breeding, and experimentation with new crops and systems of crop rotation” (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2015). “Without sedentary living and agriculture, most societal changes and technological innovations would not of been possible. The growth of the human race from a couple hundred thousand to the seven billion would not of been possible without the sustained food production that resulted from agriculture and the technological innovations and revolutions that occurred after this Revolution would not of been possible without the sedentary lifestyle” (n.d.).