I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion that I had with all of my classes today regarding the problems with the term civilization. I know that inner/outer circle puts you on the spot a bit, but you'll get used to it over time. The first one is always the hardest, and you guys did EXCELLENT today. So... what do you feel is the worst mistake in the history of the human race? It's interesting that Jared Diamond (writer of the bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel) wrote an article with that very title, and in it he says that this "worst mistake" was the decision to begin settled agriculture (aka, farming). In fact, in the very first paragraph he states the following:
"...recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence."
Wow, strong words. How does he qualify this statement? Really, we've always been taught, as Diamond points out, that the decision to farm was a positive decision because "since crops can be stored, and since it takes less time to pick food from a garden than to find it in the wild, agriculture gave us free time that hunter-gatherer never had." Granted, it is very difficult to prove that life got better or got worse for humans as a result of farming since the transition began roughly about 10,000 years ago. So how can we come to an educated conclusion? Well, why not look at hunter-gather societies that remain in existence today. For example, the people of the Kalahari desert of sub-Saharan Africa remain hunter-gathers. As Diamond points out, "it turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal, and work less hard than their farming neighbors. For instance, the average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only 12 to 19 hours for one group of Bushmen, 14 hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania [hardly the 40+ hour work week of our society]."
Additionally, there is an emerging field of science called paleopathology (essentially the study of stone age diseases), and in a lot of cases, these scientists give us insight into the world before farming because they have almost as much material to study as a pathologist today. These scientists have actually concluded that agriculture was bad for health and for three reasons...
1) "hunter-gathers enjoyed a varied diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition."
2) "because of the dependence on a limited number of crops, farmers ran the risk of starvation if one crop failed"
3) "the mere fact that agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded societies, many of which then carried on trade with other crowded societies, led to the spread of parasites and infections diseases... Epidemics couldn't take hold when populations were scattered in small bands that constantly shifted camp. Tuberculosis and diarrheal disease had to await the rise of farming, measles and bubonic plague the appearance of large cities."
Interesting! Have you ever taken the time to consider any of this? What else emerged in humanity as a result of farming? As Diamond next points out, "farming helped bring another curse upon humanity: deep class divisions. Hunter-gatherers have little or no stored food... they live off the wild plants and animals they obtain each day. Therefore, there can be no kings, no class of social parasites who grow fat on food seized from others. Only in a farming population could a healthy, non-producing elite set itself above the disease-ridden masses." Powerful logic indeed!
Additionally, Diamond argues that as a result of farming, inequality between the sexes emerges. In reality, he has a point because there is no available evidence of women being treated as below men until agricultural societies emerge. Diamond suggests this may have occured because, "freed from the need to transport their babies during a nomadic existence, and under pressure to produce more hands to till the fields, farming women tended to have more frequent pregnancies than their hunter-gatherer counterparts- with consequent drains on their health." We talk more about this emerging inequality between the sexes in the next couple of weeks. Then there is the issue of farming allowing for more free time. Can this be proven? It can't actually. In fact, modern hunter gathers have at least as much free time as farmers. Finally, as Diamond mentions, "with the advent of agriculture the elite became better off, but most people became worse off. Instead of swallowing the [idea] that we chose agriculture because it was good for us, we must ask how we got trapped by it despite its pitfalls." His answer is very simple: "Farming could support many more people than hunting, albeit with a poorer quality of life." How does it support more people? (1) "Because a field planted entirely in edible crops lets one feed far more mouths than a forest with scattered edible plants." (2) "Because nomadic hunter-gatheres have to keep their children spaced at four-year intervals by infanticide [the killing of infants] and other means, since a mother must carry her toddler until it's old enough to keep up with the adults. Because farm women don't have that burden, they can and often do bear a child every two years." So Diamond's basic conclusion is simply that what looked like possibly a good thing produced a much worse quality of life. However, once we dove in, there was no way out.
Diamond therefore ends his article this way: "Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny. Hunter-gatherers practiced the most successful and longest-lasting life style in human history. In contrast, we're still struggling with the mess into which agriculture has tumbled us, and it's unclear whether we can solve it. Suppose that an archaeologist who had visisted from outer space were trying to explain human history to his fellow spacelings. He might illustrate the results of his digs by a 24-hour clock on which one hour represents 100,000 years of real past time. If the history of the human race began at midnight, then we would now be almost at the end of our first day. We lived as hunter-gatherers for nearly the whole of that day, from midnight through dawn, noon, and sunset. Finally, at 11:54 pm we adopted agriculture. As our second midnight approaches, will the plight of famine-stricken peasants gradually engulf us all? Or will we somehow achieve those seductive blessings that we imagine behind agriculture's glittering facade, and that have so far eluded us?"
I'm not asking you to adopt Jared Diamond's point of view fully. What I would like you to do is look at a point of view that stands in stark contrast to what you have probably always been taught. Think critically about the matter therefore. I'm not telling you what to think, but I am telling you TO THINK. So what do you think? Was farming truly the worst mistake in the history of the human race? Your thoughts please...
44 comments:
After the discussion we had today and the blog that you wrote, it made me think of agriculture and civilization in a different way. If you look at it in that way,then I see that maybe the reason why we have so many diseases, and stratification is due to farming. Farming is in fact the worst mistake that occured, because mostly all the things that we thought to be positive actually become negative.
I know view agriculture and "civilization" in a different light than I did on Sunday night. I agree with Diamond's points, but who knows where we would be now if we hadn't had farming, and all the supposed advances that came after. It's hard to tell how we would have progressed. Would we all remain hunter gatherers to the day? Or would we have taken some unfathomable other route? The world may never know...
Jared diamond has a point and i understand what he is talking about, but honestly, i wonder where we would be without farming?? Would we be surviving, or would we be dying of starvation. I do get why farming was bad, but it still makes me wonder what our life would be like without it.
you make a good point miss carella. it's one thing to say farming is bad, and we shouldn't have taken that path. but here's the tricky part, if we didn't go down the farming route, would we have eventually gone on another, as you say, "unfathomable" route, perhaps more devastating? hmm...interesting. well stated.
I also do wonder where we would be without farming. I'd say that the farming gave us food...but if we didn't have farming does that mean that we'd still be hunters and gatherers. Maybe we could've developed in a different way other than farming, and maybe it would've branched off of Hunting and gathering. Maybe we wouldn't be like we are today but it makes me think would we be better off as hunters and gatherers. I would really like to know if there were other ways we could've reached here other than farming, or was farming the dead end..have humans fallen in a trap?
Kirsten, I agree with what you said. It is hard to tell where we would have progressed without farming. I think it is fascinating how agriculture developed independently in different regions of the world. It makes me wonder if humans actually chose to farm or if it was a long series of subsconscious decisions which led to what we know as agriculture; I believe it is the latter. One could argue that because humans developed agricultural independently in different regions, that with time and the right environmental and geographical conditions, humans will eventually develop agriculure inevitibly. In other words one could argue that farming is humans's destiny. So because farming leads to cities, which lead to "civilizations", which result in inequalites in wealth and gender among humans, does it mean that these inequalities are also inevitable and our destiny? Or is this all wrong? Maybe as Kirsten stated there could be other paths we could have taken that are unfathomable. It is very interesting to think about.
you certainly give us additional food for thought guys. this is a great conversation. the very idea that settled agriculture may have been our inevitable destiny is an interesting one. thanks for chiming in all of you on this one. hopefully this discussion will carry on through tomorrow.
I thought the discussion today was pretty cool. I thought it was gonna be bad and scary for some reason. I think the only why it was ok was because i actually understood the articles.
And about Diamond's point, I think i do agree with him as well. He does make a good point, and I think that i might actually do agree with the fact that faming was probably the worst mistake in history. Even though it would be nice to know what the world turned out to be like if farming was never invented..there is a chance that the other path could be worst. You never know.
yes, but no.
no because we now had a somewhat constant source of food (depending on the weather and climate etc) versus having to follow around packs of buffalo or other game leaving us with no permanent home, no truly "reliable" food sources and people dieing off every day due to starvation or being killed by the game they are hunting
yes because now priests and warriors and "administrators" now had supreme power based on lies. Nomad hunters would now raid local villages for more food then they got from hunting game. agrilculture did injust make villages a prime for exploitation.
As we discussed today in the inner-outer circle, the result of agriculture brought about social classes/ caste system. The farmers did not live in the city, which allowed all of the civilians in the city to have independent jobs, apart from farming. Now, most people would think that this would be a good thing because you get to do the job that you enjoy, rather than sticking w/ basic farming. The major problem is that when you have different jobs, you have different social levels. As Mr. Prill said today, if a doctor, a teacher, and a garbage collector walked into the room as we speak, what would you think right off the bat? Most of us would think much more highly of the doctor than the teacher, much less the garbage collector. So agriculture had its major cons, but had a very few pros, such as food. Along w/ Kirsten and Alec...Where would we be without agriculture today? Would we still have social classes, or would we all have equal views of eachother?
I really, really liked today's class. Amazingly, I was INTERESTED. "WOW" , was all I had to say after today's discussion. I didn't know that farming basicly ruined alot of this world, & I always thought farming was a normal, good thing that the farmers did for money. & That nomadic people were just hungry people walking around everywhere trying to find food. But, turns out that really, the nomadic life is OHSO much better than the lives that we have now. Well, atleast in the working live.
& Now, I really think of agriculture & civilization in a totally different way. I think that farming was the worst mistake that the world has ever made. All these negative things have come from what? FARMING.
But then again, there is a good side to it, I think.
We still have a constant food sourse at the farms. Unless, we had the bad, bad weather & things like that.
Even though farming isn't perfect I think it is better than any alternative, I mean what else would we do? Hunt? If we did hunt all the animals would be gone in a few years. Although the world population probably wouldn't be this big in the first place if we didn't farm. I don't think that farming was a mistake. There will be goods and bads in anything that happens.
To me, farming was not the WORST mistake in the history of the human race, but rather a path that lead to some mishaps. Without farming, who knows what today would be like. Farming did direct our societies to diseases and such, but hey, who said that developing our world would go without flaw?..
Farming vs Hunting Gathering. Sure It has caused sickness and and plagues and all sorts of different social and sexual seperation, but humans as a whole will look for the easiest way out of everything. It Happens everyday in the hallway it happens in society and im sure it happened 10,000 years ago. With that said These people who were hunter gatherers that switched to farming did it simply because they wanted an easier and safer way out. And for that reason it is not the worst mistake in the history of the human race.
To me, farming looks like a mistake. It increased disease, it created classes, it increased population, created slavery, made genders unequal and increased work time from the previously luxurious (I say that because of a much lesser amount of work than that which was created with agriculture) lifestyle of hunting/gathering. I don't think that we could have avoided agricultural invention because humans are too impatient. They want to "improve" the way they live but when looking back at it, did they really improve it for us? Yes, we have better medical care, but we also have diseases that have arisen because of technology. We have technology that makes work faster and easier but factories and plants put pollution in the air. People are always looking for ways in improve their life. But could we stop doing this? What if we weren't so concerned about how to make our life better? That's what farming was a result from; somebody looking for a way to make things easier. It was an increase in technology like we are constantly looking for so that our lives will be better, right? Is that what it did? But what if we just sat still and content with what we had? Is there really anything we have now that we couldn't live without? Our computers, cell phones, etc. are all very CONVINIENT but we could definitely live without them. I will say that electricity and running water are all extremely useful inventions but if it became absolutely necessary, we could live without those too. Why do we always have to go looking for something supposedly better? What if we stopped looking for that thing that will “improve” our lives? Or is it too late for that? If we focused on more important things than increasing technology and focused more on to get rid of diseases and fix environmental issues then maybe we could still save ourselves. But I think that eventually, something would have happened. If agriculture hadn't emerged when it did, it or something else at least, would have come eventually. But something had to happen. We look back on farmers now and say that they made a huge mistake but what will people say about us when they look back on us as we do the farmers?
The discussions we had in class really changed my mind set as far as farming and civilzation goes. There are cons to farming that most people don't know. Farming has given way to diseases, slavery, and unequal treating between men and women. All the pros of farming evntually changed into nagatives. Jared Diamond has a wonderful point by saying farming is the in the history of the human race, and i totally agree.
justin diamond is right in a way, but what would the worldbe today. would it be a third world country and everyone lived in poverty or just now figuring out things to go onto the future. farming has its seasons where plenty of things are grown and also no plants at all. also hunter-gathers could also be looking for food and find enough for a year.but at the same time they could find no animals to eat.so ither way i think that people should do what they think is best for their families and themselves.
EXCELLENT DISCUSSION! some of you guys are digging deep, and that is appreciated. several of you guys, including mr. pitts and alexandra (could you please sign your posts first and last name by the way? i have about 3 alexandras, and i don't know who is who) point out the human tendency to find the easy solution, the quick fix if you will, to problems. could farming be considered that quick fix? as i will point out tomorrow, the same proves true as more advanced civilizations begin to emerge. we're going to decide to make a tradeoff-- live in an unstable society (which most cities were and are) under the constant threat of possible collapse in exchange for the possibility of IMMEDIATE WEALTH. you don't have to guess twice which humans chose. good discussion so far folks, let's keep this going.
Even though Jared Diamond has a important point, I think the development of agriculture is not the worst mistake in the history of the human race. First of all, if we did not start to farm, how would we create food to eat? We probably will be hunting and gathering for what, cows or elephants? I think, if agriculture did not happen, we would not be so interconnected as how we are now, and because of agriculture we started to connect with other people and created inventions and competition which created a technology and distinctive cultures; a better world. I think agriculture led to discoveries and high-level thinking society for a better life. Of course it caused slavery, stratification, disease and many more horrible factors, but that is survial of the fittest. People now are stronger, and smarter; we are a better living organisms than how we were before 8000B.C.E.. We learned how to cure disease that were killing people, we learned to create a solution for a problem rather than passing around the obstacle. We learned from our mistake. We have to risk things to gain things;(not the best thing to risk(lives of people)), but look how much devoloped society we are in than how we were long ago. As Mr. Prill said, something to think about.
Ok, so I just thought of something, but I'm not sure if its an accurate way of thinking... So Mr. Prill said in class today that with farming came a population explosion. BUT, if we had remained nomadic hunters/gatherers, and the population had kept the same pattern of increasing very slowly, but consistantly, would our generation even be alive today in the year 2008?? I mean, if population had increased at a much much slower rate, would people that (b/c of the pop. explosion) had lived in the 1200s, actually be alive now due to slower rate of growth?? And would we, as in our generation, not have come to existance until like 3000 CE?! I don't know... just a crazy question I had!
This really has nothing whatsoever to do with whether farming was the downfall of the human race, but people were asking what life would be like now without it.. So I ask, would we even be here to know??
After reading Kirsten's comment, I began to think of any other paths we could have taken. We had become like any omnivorous animal(such as a bear), we have foraged for vegetation and hunted down animals for food and become one with nature, interacting with the environment. The only further step to make was to take nature and tie it up and manipulate it to our advantage. This would be either taking control of plant growth in a selected area than spread out, or domestication of animals, both of these factors came with farming, so Alec, farming was absolutely inevitable. After farming came more births, increasing human populations, which made requirement for more shelter, so cities were born, which evolved into "civilizations". And with the birth of "civilizations", we began to further take hold of the environment, using resources for weapons to help us fight, things like water or wind for energy, and as we progressed, we grew in power and control over nature becoming the world we are today. This was all inevitable. Humans have the highest evolved brains, magnifying things like curiousity and wonder, greed and a need for control, and our unmistakeable habit for making mistakes. Our worst was the birth of agriculture.
Diseases were also another thing we inhabited with control of nature. Living in a selective area and controling our own crops and food provides a higher probability for disease as it could concentrate on the farms and without the normal movement to hunt and gather, they didn't have natural herbs in posession, or the help of daily exercise to strengthen your body, disease was probably much more deadly and less curable.
As Mr.Prill discussed about the start of slash and burn. As farming became more prevalent, so did the need for fertile land. Slashing and burning forests gave, not only room, but also the ash made the ground very fertile as the nutrients in plants and trees returned to the earth. This began the destruction of environment, furthering our hold on the leash we have put on nature. This also began the start of negative human interactions. As Mr.Prill stated, the effect of slashing and burning would affect the lives of nomads. The animals would be driven away, and plants and foods would be destroyed. This provokes fights among humans, which called for weapons, and escalated into wars with the birth of civilizations and the thirst for power, which was inevitably brought about by farming! Farming is, without a doubt(in my opinion), humanity's worst mistake...and greatest accomplishment...
FARMING... humanity's worst mistake, and greatest accomplishment. I love it!
I understand where Diamond is coming from with his thoughts on how bad of a mistake farming was but I would have to disagree with him on it being the worst mistake. Yes it did bring about disease and it did put women gatherers out of the job but there were so many good things to come with agriculture. It helped to make cities more practical as well as new occupations and eventually brought us to where we are today. The style of living we have with farming is in my opinion a much better one than having to search for food everyday. We have so many luxuries that we wouldn't have without farming like communities and maybe even the education we can get today. Could you imagine life without Mr. Prill's AP World History class?!?
I'm not yet sure if I agree with Jared's idea that farming was the worst mistake in human history but I do think it was one of the most important decisions that we, collectively, as human beings ever made. To me, the hunter-gatherer life style seems much less complicated than an agricultural based life style. That is, there aren't as many things to worry about, such as school, jobs, cleaning your house, etc. Basically, I see a life of hunting and gathering as being a lot simpler of a life than the ones most members of society live today. Whether or not this is a good thing, I think, depends largely on an individual’s point of view. As for me, I think everyday life being a little less hectic would definitely be a good thing.
i think that agriculture was not a mistake at all. i much rather prefer sitting in my large comfortable house wearing nice clothes and eating whenever and whatever i want. social strification is only a bad thing if the alternative is wealth for all. but if it offers everyone a chance to pull his or herself out of poverty and starvation and hardship then it is a good thing. i did not misunderstand the lesson, i completely agree that conflict and paternalization are unfortunate outcomes of agriculture, but the positives of it are enormous!
I would have to agree with Madison that I adore the idea of a simple life of hunting. The stresses of life in this time can drive people insane-I wonder if there were cases of mental illness in hunter-gatherer societies or if that was somehow linked to farming like most things-, but I couldn't imagine being so clueless about the world around me. I personally love gathering knowledge, regardless of the subject I like to know about things, and the broader my horizon of knowledge is, the better. I do believe the stress of life is unbearable at times, but I couldn't stand being unknowledgable. Although it wouldn't bother me being unknowledgable as a hunter(I wouldn't know I'm not), and while being knowledgable it bothers me how the world has been shaped by human hands in such a negative manner, and the worst part is the amount of people stating they can fix our mistakes, it's near irreversible, if not completely, for us to fix the damage we've done to scar the face of the Earth. But, I would never choose simple lifestyles over the knowledge I have gained in this day and time, but that is my human flaw of wanting to cling onto something-although it isn't a worldly possession, therefore it isn't seen as impure in some religions or societies-, and human flaws is what drew us to our societies today, and I do believe hunter-gatherer socities were best for humans, to be more animal-like, as it is practical and I believe our achieved intelligence was a mistake, regardless if it was somehow intentional or otherwise, since now with our achieved status, we are taking over the world by human populations-Also, why hasn't anyone found the carrying capacity of the world for humans? It can't be well over 6 billion!- So, although I like the knowledge and understanding of this time, I still believe hunter-gatherer societies is the correct path for humans, after all, most of our existence is spent that way, but I still think it was inevitable that we evolved to what we are today.
This discussion is beginning to get somewhat repetative, however I shall add my opinion to the now long list of others.
Nearing the end of the humans' role as hunters and gatherers, we needed to progress into a more structural or concrete lifestyle. Groups of hunters needed more than the daily growl of gathering the food for that one day, so we tried for big game. As touched on earlier by Park Thomas, hunting big game provided more disadvantages than benefits, given the primitive weaponry of the time. If a person did get lucky enough to kill a large animal, they had food for months. If a person wounded a large animal, the animal would kill the hunter.
So, this routine of daily hunting was inefficient and did not exactly feed the human benefits of a varied diet.
Humans needed to settle to breed, and to do that we needed an efficient and reliable source of food. The inventive minds of human beings eventually created farming. I agree with others in that we needed farming; without it our populations would have remained stable, but we wouldn't have erected large enough villages to provide opportunity for boundary disputes ending in war. I still remain torn on this subject.
Well Greg, I agree that when hunting large game, you can get killed, but don't think of hunters as humans, think of them as animals. Dieing is a part of life and what else can kill us other than large game and the few diseases that were prevalent during these stages of humanity. If humans were killed while hunting it is only the process of maintaining population stability and consistency. Also, humans hunted, not alone, but in groups, so although one or two could die during a hunt, human were bound to retrieve their food in the end and this helps. Although nowadays since we've advanced beyond the need to risk our lives hunting, we wouldn't think about humans in the same level as animals, that's what humans were like at times. Tigers are strong, fast, and have teeth and claws. Humans are also well-balanced, hunted in groups and used primal weaponry for claws and teeth. Hunters were no better than animals. The truth is, more humans should die like they did then, because now our population is on an exponential increase, which is dangerous.
Also, we didn't need farming until the end of Ice Age when large game started to become extinct, after humans became used to taking down large game. Hunting smaller game took too long and too many trips and humans started to control the growth of plants. I believe farming wasn't necessary, but another way humans innovated to make their lives easier for themselves, and in accordance, dooming themselves for centuries to come...
Although I partly agree with Jared Diamond's statements, I don't think agriculture is the worst mistake in human history. The end of the ice age increased the population only slightly, but it also made some animals extinct. This made food resources scarcer, and it might have resulted in the tragedy of commons, in which the free acess and unrestiricted use of the resources lead to the degration of resource. If people hunted and gathered in a faster rate than the rate of reproduction of the food resources, it would lead to extinction of the food resources and eventually to extinction of humans. Even though it is true that agriculture led to many bad things such as diseases and social stratification, it is still better than being extinct.
Ian I must also include that with farming and eventually buying grocery store food, humans have lost track of proper nutrition and now focus on curbing their hunger. Also, I don't think you agree that the negativitieswar, economic differences between countries, and increasing disease risks are easily surmounted in correspondence to the positivity of more leisurable lives. Which aren't as leisurable later on in life when you have to get in a good college and a good degree in a field of occupation, get a good job and support yourself and possibly wife and kids. I don't think anything can outweigh the negative consequences.
Until we discussed the topic in class, I didn't really think much of farming making things more complicated. As Mr. Prill brought up in class, our past teachers have been filling our heads with thoughts of farming making life much easier. Although, I still must disagree with Diamond's thought of agriculture being the worst mistake in our history. Even though there were a number of drawbacks to the agricultural revolution, including more intensive work with crops along with slavery, success seems to outweigh those downfalls. With each event/revolution/etc, there's always going to be consequences, good and bad. If we didn't have that agricultural revolution where farming was born, where would we be today? As we mentioned in class, a surplus of food ends up resulting in an increase in population. With more people, we tend to have more things going on besides farming alone. If we didn't have such a large population today, would we have most the activities, jobs, etc. going on now? Would most of the things humans have discovered and created over time even exist if we didn't have such a large population with people contributing?
This whole discussion over farming really could be never ending, people go back and forth stating their opinions. What gets me is we tried to get out in the easiest route possible, meaning hunters and gatherers were getting tired of all they did for a limited supply of food, so they came up with to them the greatest idea to them and to us well actually me the cause of all the struggles we deal with now. When we came up with the idea of farming i don't believe we had a thought in our minds of what it would cause the future generations wether positive or negative. But if you really think about it they were doing it for the best. Imagine if today we were still struggling for food as hunters and gatherers if it wasn't for farming. who knows what we would be dealing with today. The real question is what would give us more struggles today all the negative things we got out of farming or what would of happened if farming was never invented??? This is why its hard to think about what would have been the better choice because we now farming has it positives and negative, and yes very bad negatives, but we will never know what would of happened in the future if we stayed as hunters and gatherers and forgot about farming because we didn't choose to.
Hey Mr. Prill! Im leaving my movie blog thingy to make sure my computers finally working. i watched amistad and it was amazing. It was a great story but brutal and very disturbing. I dont understand how humans could treat other humans that way. And i also had a comment on something u said in class the other day when atomic weapontry came up. U said that we have enough atomic weapons to blow up the earth ten times, why? Its ok if theyre our bombs. And i was thinking about it and its because we r afraid as a country that someone is going to blow us up so we made something unbelievably damaging so we can use it as a fear tactic on other countries. Idk just my thoughts.
miss kempshall, just to clarify, currently we have enough nuclear weaponry to blow up the early approx 3 1/2 times (still a lot of firepower, but not 10x thankfully). we'll talk about the reasons for what we call "nuclear proliferation" at a later date, and the roots and causes of it. thanks for chiming in.
Despite the discussion on agriculture being the worst invention, I strongly disagree. While I'm not here to bash on anyone and their beliefs, I believe religion is one of the worst inventions of mankind. More people have been killed in so called "Holy Wars", in the name of God, than in any other wars. Religious fighting has been going on for thousand of years, just because people don't believe in the same thing. Now how is religion a good thing when the body count in a "Holy War" is so high?
-Robert Garrison-
Mr. Prill, to clarify, isn't it the United States alone, or the accumulated world, that could destroy the world 3(or 3.5) times with the nuclear arms we have? Then, counting other countries, the world could be destroyed well over 10 times, especially Russia, who has almost 3x the amount of warheads as the USA, although only roughly 1800 more active. Russia has more active warheads than we have in total.
to answer your question mr. gaultney, it is the world that has the capacity to destroy the earth 3.5 times over with its nuclear weaponry. specificly that would be what political scientists refer to as the "nuke 9"-- united states, great britain, france, china, russia, india, pakistan, israel, and (we think) north korea.
Even though farming did cause conflicts that can't be undone, I wonder if it might have helped people also. What would happen during a time when no food was available? Like during winter when animals leave and hibernate andedible plants die. Even if that group had leftover food, what if it ran out? Could farming have saved people in a way? This topic seems controversial to me.
i think agriculture was not the worst mistake but a rather big one.
i belive this because without agicultue we wouldnt be were we are right now, and it was a big mistake because it made humans life harder. it also brought along diseas
I have to agree with Vanessa and Paceo. Farming, or agriculture, has brought along many problems like diseases, but it also helped with feeding families and animals who then the family could eat. There is just no way that we would be where we are now without farming. It just doesn't seem possible. Animals would be to a minimum or mostly extinct by now.
And being the vegatarian that i am, im happy that farming came around. It gave people other options of food. :]
Well i think that farming is a very important part of human life and with out it i don't know what we would do but i can also see the harm of it but i still don't know what the world would be like without it.
Has anyone seen Wall-E? If so, I thought of this last night.
Spiler:
Remember at the end of the movie when they go back to Earth and replace Wall-E's chip. Then it's all happily ever after and the credits roll. Or so we thought. If you paid attention in the credits it showed simple animations of robots and humans working together to restore plants on Earth, or FARMING. OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Has Wall-E made the worst mistake in history a second time!?!?!?!? And the humans made the choice consciensly?!?!?!?
Wall-E II: Humans have repopulated the Earth,but distinct civilizations have arose and are constantly warring. Those in power are those who have robots, and they rule over those who don't own robots. Were humans better off being lazy in their Spaceship?
Ha Ha.
GOOD POST! Ya know, I never even made that connection as I watched the film. I love this blog!
after our discussion that we had it really did make me realize how farming was very bad for us. this is what caused diseases. i never thought of it this way before cause if you look at it usually you will bhe like oh yeah farming is great for us cuz it produces food, but it really isnt...
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