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this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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Practically every single tribe on the planet decided that the odds for farming was better than rolling the dice every year.
I think it's more likely that it was better odds, and those that continued nomadic life died off at a much higher rate.
I think both of you are not considering two major aspects:
Farming can feed more people on a given fertile area than hunting and gathering can.
Farming is area exclusive, e.g. there is a set amount of people farming in one area and considering this area to be theirs, excluding everyone else from usage.
It is very much possible, that in terms of providing food for the existing population both are equally viable. But with farming you could create larger more densely packed populations, which in turn provided means to exclude others by force. So while hunting and gathering was not necessarily a bad way of life, it did not allow for imperialism and was subsequently diminished by the imperialists.
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about
Man's never heard of the Mongols, Turks, Huns, etc etc etc.
Whose lifestyles only worked because they could trade for food and goods from farming communities btw
And they existed about 2000-1000 years ago. Humans started settling and farming as far back as 10.000-12.000 years ago.
Of course by then populations have increased tremendously. But in the spirit of the meme that probably wasn't the best overall course of action, was it?
We can ignore all the other nomadic tribes doing just as much evil shit as city dwellers throughout history the moment they have the opportunity and means, sure.
Several mass extinctions have been caused by evolution creating a lifeform that is too successful. The difference between humans and them is that we can recognize we are the problem and consciously adapt.
Some of us, anyways.
Regardless, that adaptation won't be by abandoning agriculture.
Farming is like a memetic prion disease. Every other food production method it touches turns into farming.
That and hunter-gatherer tribes tend to get genocided.