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what do you think are the pros and cons to the agricultural revolution?

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fakename Posted: Sun, Dec 6 2009 2:12 PM

It made people physically weaker, smaller, and it increased the labor time spent working.

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AJ replied on Tue, Dec 15 2009 12:36 AM

People can still get big and strong if they want to (go to the gym, eat big), and if people want a pre-revolution standard of living, they can maintain one by working far fewer hours than they had to back then.

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fakename replied on Thu, Dec 17 2009 12:29 AM

after doing a little more poking around I think that it may be that this choice between being healthy and living long enough to be healthy, was foisted on our ancestors by an extinction event caused by a meteor (I don't know the proper term).  So for me it seems strange to blame the agrarian revolution for its bad effects -like blaming air for fire.

AJ:
People can still get big and strong if they want to (go to the gym, eat big), and if people want a pre-revolution standard of living, they can maintain one by working far fewer hours than they had to back then.

So as per the extinction event, this whole scenario is necessary but in the ancient ( pre 10,000BC probably) world people were generally healthier -a strange fact is that given farm subsidies and all the unhealthy stuff we have to deal with today, turns out people in terms of height are just as tall today as they were in hunter-gatherer times too. Are we eating less grains?

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Pros: it allowed civilization begin and man to live a somwhat stable state of existance

Cons: That it allowed this thread to exist.... Because I so absolutly no downside to somthing that is the first step for bringing man out of a life of absolute squaler.

"Lo! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that hath gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to take it." -Thus Spake Zarathustra
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