The Worst Mistake In Human History Analysis

In Jared Diamond's article "The Worst Mistake in Human History," he describes the adoption of agriculture as a catastrophy. At first mention, this sounds rediculous. How could one of our greatest advancements possibly be regaurded as the worst mistake in human history? It encouarged civilization and made food easier to come back. Surely this porgession was not catastrophic. The adoption of agriculuture offered much room for advancement. In hunter-gatherer societies, people had to move with their food sources often in order to survive. The adoption of agriculture offered a fixed place in which it was safe to remain without starvation being a concern. People could now keep more items with them, domesticate animals, and live around each
Suprising at it may seem, more people suffer from malnutrion now than they used to. Farmers tend to only plant and harvest high-carbohydrate crops such as rice and potatoes due to their ability to grow in large quanties. They can make a greater profit off of products like these. Since we all now depend upon these farmers to provide our societies with food, we do not have as varied a diet as previous hunter-gatherer societies. To qoute the article directly, "when they swtiched to farming, they traded quantity for quailtity." This is an evident fact. Crops which produce larger quantities of food are more likely to be planted than those which may be healthier options. Another obvious drawback to the adoption of agriculture was the spread of disease. Clearly living in close quaters with others gave disease way to spread, but it didnt stop there. Disease was aslo able to spread through trade between neighboring groupd. Domesticated animals would aslo experience disease spread due to close quaters, and these diseases would in turn be transfuerred to humans through airborne mutations as well as the meat taken from these