Interesting links

[annwfyn]

Here we have an article by Jared Diamond on why agriculture was the greatest mistake humanity ever made. It's really interesting, especially the point he makes about not comparing the life of someone who lives in the first world (who is not representative of the global population) to the life of a hunter gatherer, but rather comparing the average subsistence level farmer to the the average hunter gatherer.

Here we have some colour pictures of London during the Blitz. It's amazing how much more immediate it seems in colour, how much more terrifyingly real.

As an apologetic note, I've been mostly away from the computer today and chunks of yesterday so I'm really behind on my e mail. Sorry if I owe anyone anything. Shall try and do a big catch up tomorrow. And now, for I am exhausted, to bed!

Comments

[pmp.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced by the speculation in the first article, after all it fails to distinguish with the interferance of the big companies in modern agriculture.

For example, seed companies who breed their plants so they produce a bumper crop, but only when treated when treated with the mix of chemicals also sold by the same company.

[suave-steve.livejournal.com]

Not like it is anything urgent, rest.

[ulaidhan.livejournal.com]

Bizarre article, that one from Diamond.

What, Professor, in the late 80s you discovered that an over-simplified version of Whig history wasn't entirely accurate? That history wasn't just a "story of progress"? We can probably excuse you for not being aware of some of the output of the Scottish Enlightenment (which included wild notions such as some non-European civilisations being more 'advanced' and cultured than many contemporary European states, that were in turn less cultured and advanced than some of their own predecessors) - but what a shame that you hadn't paid any attention to debates on the topic earlier in the 20th century, Professor Diamond.

Likewise, the arguments are wonderfully incoherent. Hunter-gathering is "better for most people", yet it's also acknowledged in a couple of places that agriculture was probably adopted to feed an excess population. Would it have been "better for most people" to refuse to adopt agriculture, and to simply over-tax the resources until mass starvation set in and the whole population risked starving to death? 'Mass death and misery, or letting most people live'. Apparently the 'mass death' option "should" have been chosen wherever population grew too large.

The little anecdote about the sexism of a group of rural males encountered while he was on a field trip was also bizarre: how does "while moving, men made a woman carry the heavy load" equate to "while moving, men would not make women carry a heavy load if they were part of a hunter-gathering society"? At best, he seems to be extrapolating wildly.

The 'revelation' that grain-based societies are less well-fed than those with a more mixed diet is extremely old news. For example, there've been many decades of comment on how waves of hill and mountain folk - pastoralists with a high-protein diet and seasonal labour demands that create a large pool of underemployed adults at certain times of the year - persistently prey upon and often conquer more populous grain-growing societies. The history of Mesopotamia in particular has been argued to be a cycle of that story writ large - with pastoralists from mountain, steppe, hill, or desert invading the agricultural lowlands in an long succession through the millennia.

The historical photos, however, are great. :)

[cristobel.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, I was about to tear apart that article on farming, but Andrew has nicely done it for me!!!!

It's interesting though, I'd never though of it like that before, but I don't buy it and I agree with the above critique. I found it really romantised hunter-gathers. Hunters - cool lean dangerous exciting. Farming- boring sedate predictable fat.