• Llituro [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Getting tied to the land is a pretty exploitable material condition if you're willing to murder enough people, and it turns out that's a bit of a false vacuum situation.

      • ancom20 [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        IMO, everything to do with the human experience started to go downhill when we transitioned to an agricultural society.

        • mark213686123 [none/use name]
          hexagon
          ·
          3 years ago

          I dunno the being able to have enough food to store away and have specialised labour is pretty neat

          • p_sharikov [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Peasants were actually more food insecure than hunter gatherers. Hunter gatherers had a lower population and a diverse variety of food sources. Peasants on the other hand had a relatively poor diet, were vulnerable to disease, and would die en masse if a single important crop failed like 2 or 3 years in a row.

              • ancom20 [none/use name]
                ·
                3 years ago

                that is true so far because we have largely been successful developing new technologies to expand agricultural production. thus its current state is more vulnerable for this reason. We have artificially increased the carrying capacity of the land. This increases its vulnerability if there is a "technological" disruption. Such as no access to petrochemical-derived fertilizer (during current RU/UA conflict), new GMO/GE seeds (because they are designed to require repurchasing), groundwater depletion due to overpumping (Ogallala comes to mind), plant disease and insects adapting to monocrop and GE/GMO agriculture (making pesticides ineffective).

              • p_sharikov [he/him]
                ·
                3 years ago

                That's a very recent development and we're already having serious problems with soil deletion and climate. Those are solvable problems but we haven't actually solved them yet and a lot of people are going to die from food insecurity in the coming decades.

            • ancom20 [none/use name]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Also hunter gatherers had less gender inequality and less wealth inequality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_communism https://immortal.org/8977/sexual-equality-study/