The Worst Mistake in Human History.

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dharma Bum]

[PoS]

[Stratego]

[The Dharma Bum]

[Stratego]

[The Dharma Bum]

It's not a fallacy at all. You are simply ignoring the facts and restating the myth that is being disproven by this information in the face of empirical evidence to the contrary.

Yes, if the product of society's collective effort were distributed in any kind of equitable manner people would have to do a lot less work than they do now, which is exactly what I am advocating, ultimately.

But since a tiny segment of the population can have massive fortunes and a monopoly on political power the potential for this leisure time is lost to the average person, who has to work most of his life away simply to survive. (It's a complete waste of the human potential). Even so an agricultural society would still require that each individual worked more that a forager would have to in a hunter gatherer society. In an agricultural society the only one doing less work than a forager would be the elite class who do no productive labor at all and that is only a tiny percentage of population.

The fact is agricultural society does produce a larger mass of food, but the price it pays in work per calorie is far higher because it is grossly inefficient. You can feed more people, but you cannot feed them as well, which is why they are more susceptible to disease and hardship and weaker individually.

[Mathurin]

[Mathurin]

Oh ho, one last nail left for the coffin.


In the US, 1.4% of the population is involved in agriculture, yet america is the top producer of major world food commodities.
http://faostat.fao.org/site/339/default.aspx



Where was that so called "empirical evidence" you had, cause I would like to tear off its mask and expose it as propaganda

[The Dharma Bum]

I think you are missing the point.

The idea is not that HG society can produce more food or sustain a greater population. It can't.

The main point is those benefits are gained at a high cost in health, leisure time, and social stability. HG gatherer societies are inarguably the most stable and long lasting type of society. In contrast our civilization is constantly at the brink of self annihilation, most people are inundated with health issues related to bad diet and lack of exercise, and we are beset with major social issues leading to the potential breakdown of society.

I'm not arguing that everyone become hunter gatherers. I'm suggesting that there may be some useful information to be found in anthropology, ethnography, evolutionary science etc that can help us understand what kind of organism we really are and accordingly how best to design a utilitarian society for this type of organism.

So maybe if we can throw out the superstitious and irrational cultural beliefs that guide a large percentage of our population and embrace science as the best way to understand reality we can come up with something better than an unsustainable culture. One that purposely depends on overconsumption and waste to guide it's economic and social power. The rest of the world simply cannot adopt American culture.There aren't enough resources available.