Why Cities?

[giblets]

permanent

[Dinner]

You smell.

[The Mad Monk]

He meant, "Thank you."

[BeBMan]

All this talk of hunter-gatherers and cities is forcing me to play CivIV C2C.

Dunno if it's better to gather hunters or to hunt gatherers. Or to gather hunters to hunt gatherers.

[The Mad Monk]

I believe the guy with the Centauran haircut.

[ricketyclik]

I don't agree with the premise of the OP. Sure, hunter gatherers may have spent less time sustaining themselves, but at a lower standard of living. They were more exposed to the elements, and thus pathogens, and they were in a more precarious existence. With agriculture from many regions feeding in to cities via trade, food sources were more diversified and therefore more reliable.

Cities arose spontaneously among many different civilisations simultaneously around 12,000 years ago after the advent of agriculture. I subscribe to the theory that once agriculture existed, cities are the most efficient way to maximise human benefit.

As an aside, this is an interesting theory: Throughout human history (roughly 250,000 years) the world was in an orbital cycle that saw balmy periods of a couple of thousand years about every 20,000 years in a generally glacial era. On the last one we got lucky and discovered agriculture, started to clear, and the number of ruminant, methane producing animals increased, because we were protecting them from predators. This slight change in the carbon balance (enhancing the greenhouse effect) was just enough to prevent the tipping back in to the normal glacial state, prolonging the balmy state, and allowing agriculture to proliferate.

The rest, as they say, is history.

[Egbert]

48" is only a legend.

48" is the "Oerdin size pizza".

[Lorizael]

I don't agree with the premise of the OP. Sure, hunter gatherers may have spent less time sustaining themselves, but at a lower standard of living. They were more exposed to the elements, and thus pathogens, and they were in a more precarious existence. With agriculture from many regions feeding in to cities via trade, food sources were more diversified and therefore more reliable.

Check out the video and its sources, but I think a good case can be made for city life being terrible.

Trade networks came slowly, so there wouldn't have been diverse food sources in the first cities. While the hunter-gatherer lifestyle involved exposure (and was clearly quite dangerous), living in cities meant you had to contend with poor sanitation, dense populations that accelerate the spread of pathogens, and close and prolonged proximity to animals, which has historically meant more disease. My understanding is that this is what we can glean from the bodies found in cities versus in hunter-gatherer locales. Hunter-gatherers were generally healthy (taller, better bones) and died older, but were more likely to die violently.

[Ben Kenobi]

In the Pacific Northwest Natives created, not real cities, but certainly large permanent townships in areas which were exceptionally productive. Places with large salmon runs, a lot of game, and a lot of wild foods such as berries, nuts, and acorns. That is impressive as the natives had no agriculture in that area yet could still make permanent settlements based upon areas with exceptionally good natural food sources.

Given their relative isolation they were also one of the last areas to develop agriculture.

[ricketyclik]

Check out the video and its sources, but I think a good case can be made for city life being terrible.

Trade networks came slowly, so there wouldn't have been diverse food sources in the first cities. While the hunter-gatherer lifestyle involved exposure (and was clearly quite dangerous), living in cities meant you had to contend with poor sanitation, dense populations that accelerate the spread of pathogens, and close and prolonged proximity to animals, which has historically meant more disease. My understanding is that this is what we can glean from the bodies found in cities versus in hunter-gatherer locales. Hunter-gatherers were generally healthy (taller, better bones) and died older, but were more likely to die violently.

That may well be, but their opportunities for one night stands were probably way less.

[Dinner]

Given their relative isolation they were also one of the last areas to develop agriculture.

They never did. At least not until Europeans arrived.

[Aeson]

The grass is always greener on the other side. Smart people trick dumb or unsuspecting people into choosing what is worse for themselves (and best for the masters) using this natural lure, and the hardest traps to get out of keep the most people.

Also other things.

[Cort Haus]

John Green goes over the evidence that, at least in the short term, moving from hunter-gatherer life to city life was a bad choice for most humans. They worked more, they ate worse, they were more susceptible to disease, etc. And yet people still did it anyway, and obviously we have civilization now because of that choice. But no prehistoric human made the choice because they knew their great^n grandchildren would thank them. So why'd it happen?

Better and wider choic of sexual partners in cities, obviously. :shrug: The countyside is obviously very nice to go and look at now and again, but one wouldn't want to actually live there or anything. One might turn into a rural idiot. :sniff:

And I'm not watching that video. I couldn't be bothered and the summary suggests that it's boring and goes against my confirmation bias and besides, the bloke is sporting a Liverpool and a Wimbledon scarf, so is clearly a complete wrong 'un.

[Lorizael]

In fact, he sponsors AFC Wimbledon and sometimes doesn't shut up about them.

[Cort Haus]

In fact, he sponsors AFC Wimbledon and sometimes doesn't shut up about them.

Really? Look, I've got nothing against the wombles, even though I do against the Scousers, but if he has to signal his football team while recording his polemics, it really should be just the one. And sponsor? What is his company?