That is not just taking the ball and running it way downfield. It's overshooting the goal line, continuing through the crowd, out the exit gate, out into the street, finally making a touch down in a cul-de-sac alley :)GE Morton wrote: ↑August 15th, 2022, 8:50 pmJared Diamond called the advent of agriculture "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race."Sy Borg wrote: ↑August 15th, 2022, 8:23 pm
The issues are far from new. Civilisations have fallen due to land mismanagement. Environmental issues naturally came from the agricultural revolution, which altered natural ecosystems. From there, numerous mistakes have been made due to lack of local knowledge that have decimated ecosystems.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet ... human-race
:-)
I think of the agriculture as cracking some eggs to make an omelette. There have been many tremendous balls-ups in history - both ancient and recent - many of which would have been avoidable had leaders bothered to listen to experts in the local area, ie. the original long-term inhabitants.
Still I am in favour agriculture and other technological advances for the same reason that I am in favour of (non-extreme) inequality. Maybe we humans would last longer if we just stayed in jungles, picking fruits and spearing animals, and putting our brainpower into deep spiritual pursuits.
However, we humans were evicted from Eden for failing to respect our landlord's property, and so I - as a fallen human - would rather to cheer on the space projects of Musk, Bezos, NASA and even the CCP than to lead a short, brutish and parasite-infested life in the wild. The Earth's biosphere is doomed, anyway, when the Sun expands. It's only a matter of when. The biosphere can either die out completely, or send its "seeds" out to other worlds. For that, we need inequality - and, of course, agriculture.
Agriculture will eventually evolve too. Entomophagy will become more widespread. Jellyfish products will be common. Pain-free meats will be grown in factories for mass production and all manner of meals based on fungi and symbiotes that are grown indoors a la Asimov.
By then, most wild animals will be gone and many arable lands will lose productivity (although with some opening up in the Arctic and Antarctic), so the changes will be forced.