Why the world is a better place than before

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Kidicious


No, I'm not. I think people are more stressed out now.

It's like this. I'm generally not a worrier. Certainly I was not when I was younger. Then I went threw all kinds of stressfull situations dealing with work and divorce. I think that made me more of a worrier. It's kind of like PTS. The stress has made me more reactionary to stress. Now just a little bit of stress and i feel it in my stomach big time.

Yup, you're right, people do get stressed these days. OMG where did I leave my car keys??!!

Back in the day, all people needed to worry about was whether they'd be alive 3 months later

[Arrian]

What the hell is wrong with you people that you have to tell me something that I know as if you are arguing with me?!

1. Don't be a jerk to people. It's starting to get irritating.

2. Nothing you've posted in this thread would indicate that you know that stuff. In fact, your posts seemed to indicate otherwise.

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by LordShiva


Yup, you're right, people do get stressed these days. OMG where did I leave my car keys??!!

Back in the day, all people needed to worry about was whether they'd be alive 3 months later

Well speak for yourself. I don't worry about how long I have to live. It's less now than it was before and I'm just as happy.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian


1. Don't be a jerk to people. It's starting to get irritating.

2. Nothing you've posted in this thread would indicate that you know that stuff. In fact, your posts seemed to indicate otherwise.

-Arrian

You know Arrian you might try reading a book. Agricultural societies usually planted food. That's prettty well established. So you are like totally full of horse ****! Stop being a jerk!

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Kidicious

It's no consensus at all. There is no proof either way. Maybe some developed agriculture out of necessity and some developed it for religious reasons. I believe the more populare theory is that most developed it for religious reasons.

So popular, in fact, that I've never once seen anyone mention it before this thread. Try using some common sense too - why did humanity spread to pretty much every area of the globe before the first agrarian societies developed?

What the hell is wrong with you people that you have to tell me something that I know as if you are arguing with me?!

As Arrian said, you don't seem to be demonstrating that you know any of it.

I don't know what society you are refering to, but what is your point? I'm not at all clear about what you are arguing with me about.

Quite a large number of native tribes. And the point is that religion, societal rankings and specialized roles existed prior to the development of agriculture, yet you're arguing that they didn't, and that agriculture was developed as a means of obtaining what already existed.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Arrian
1. Don't be a jerk to people. It's starting to get irritating.

2. Nothing you've posted in this thread would indicate that you know that stuff. In fact, your posts seemed to indicate otherwise.

-Arrian

Bingo. Hit it on the nail there. The reason we tell Kid obvious stuff is because it seemingly isn't obvious to him based on what he's posted.

Furthermore, agriculture developing because of religion?! WTF?! What's next, religion also being the cause of all natural disasters and disease?

Kid, you may want to try reading more, like, as I said before, "Guns, Germs, and Steel".

[Arrian]

Kid,

Let me spell it out for you. Kontiki said this:

Many groups never developed agriculture, and yet developed religious beliefs and systems and in certain places over-hunted game to the point of local extinction.

Throughout the thread, you have been asserting that h/g societies lived in harmony with nature and that religion is the cause of the switchover to agriculture.

Yet, in response to Kontiki's post, which points out that not all h/g societies were in harmony with nature and that some h/gs had religion, you (in an insulting manner) say that you already knew it.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

edit:

You know Arrian you might try reading a book. Agricultural societies usually planted food. That's prettty well established. So you are like totally full of horse ****! Stop being a jerk!

This doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Incidently, there were a few sedentary h/g societies discussed in Gun Germs and Steel, who lived in particularly rich areas. Those were able to develop some more complexity, IIRC, though they still lost out to the farmers in the end.

I didn't bring them up before because I figured there were an exception to the general rule...

-Arrian

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Eli


And this summarizes the entire argument. Vague psychological gains like a healthy relation to death, versus clear and concrete benefits like medicine.

Pathetic lowly man.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kontiki


So popular, in fact, that I've never once seen anyone mention it before this thread. Try using some common sense too - why did humanity spread to pretty much every area of the globe before the first agrarian societies developed?

.Causes of the Neolithic Revolution

Causes of the Neolithic Revolution
Harlan, examining the causes for the Neolithic Revolution, suggests 6 principal reasons which can be summarised to 3 principal categories:

1)Domestication for religious reasons
2)Domestication by crowding and as a consequence of stress
3)Domestication resulting from discovery, based upon the perceptions of food gatherers
With regard to the first explanation, Ian Hodder, who directs the excavations at Çatalhöyük, has suggested that the earliest settled communities, and the Neolithic revolution they represent, actually preceded the development of agriculture. He has been developing the ideas first expressed by Jacques Cauvin, the excavator of the Natufian settlement at Mureybet in northern Syria. Hodder believes that the Neolithic revolution was the result of a revolutionary change in the human psychology, a "revolution of symbols" which led to new beliefs about the world and shared community rituals embodied in corpulent female figurines and the methodical assembly of aurochs horns.

An alternative explanation for the origin of agriculture is propounded by Mark Nathan Cohen. Cohen believes that following the widespread extinctions of large mammals in the late Palaeolithic, the human population had expanded to the limits of the available territory and a population explosion led to a food crisis. Agriculture was the only way in which it was possible to support the increasing population on the available area of land.

See #1

I don't know what society you are refering to, but what is your point? I'm not at all clear about what you are arguing with me about.

Quite a large number of native tribes. And the point is that religion, societal rankings and specialized roles existed prior to the development of agriculture, yet you're arguing that they didn't, and that agriculture was developed as a means of obtaining what already existed.

I'm not arguing that they didn't exist. That doesn't really make sense since I'm claiming that the cause of agriculture is religion. My point is that there were religious and agricultural transformations that developed together. That's why I don't know what you are getting at.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Well speak for yourself. I don't worry about how long I have to live.

Maybe because you're better off now than you would have been had you been born into a hunter-gather lifestyle

[Eli]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


Pathetic lowly man.

Nice to meet you. I'm Eli.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian
Kid,

Let me spell it out for you. Kontiki said this:



Throughout the thread, you have been asserting that h/g societies lived in harmony with nature and that religion is the cause of the switchover to agriculture.

Yet, in response to Kontiki's post, which points out that not all h/g societies were in harmony with nature and that some h/gs had religion, you (in an insulting manner) say that you already knew it.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

I was obviously refering to the societies who were living in harmony with nature relatively speaking compared to others that were not. Should that be so hard to assume?

edit:

This doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.

-Arrian

I didn't mean for it to make sense. I meant for you to see what I have had to deal with in this thread.

[Arrian]

An alternative explanation for the origin of agriculture is propounded by Mark Nathan Cohen. Cohen believes that following the widespread extinctions of large mammals in the late Palaeolithic, the human population had expanded to the limits of the available territory and a population explosion led to a food crisis. Agriculture was the only way in which it was possible to support the increasing population on the available area of land.

This sounds a helluva lot more likely and logical than category #1 (religion). Still, even if religion played a role (which still seems odd to me), it is but one of the three categories.

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Kid, you may want to try reading more, like, as I said before, "Guns, Germs, and Steel".

I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear enough for you, but I don't disagree with the idea that food surpluses were a factor contributing to the developement of society.

Do you ever quit?