Summary Of The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race

Improved Essays
Many people view agriculture as the key to success in human history and that it ultimately led humans to become civilized. In fact, the reasons are plausible. With agriculture present, humans were able to efficiently find food and store crops. Their unoccupied time was used to create marvelous architecture, compose musical masterpieces, and much more that we associate with the unique attributes that separate humans from animals. However, with good follows bad. In Jared Diamond’s article The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race, he informs the readers about the change in lifestyle of the human race after shifting to an agricultural civilization from hunter-gathering societies. He describes the curses and vexes brought upon humanity after farming became universally practiced. Diamond’s speculation about the negative impacts that agricultural society created are accurate. …show more content…
During the past, human race have witnessed great achievements. However, those achievements eventually lead to chaos. According to Ronald Wright’s A Short History of Progress, one example that demonstrates this is the technical progress of weaponry. At first, weapons meant a larger food supply that could support a larger population. However, these basic weapons have advanced to the point where they have caused the extinction of countless species. As shown, the technical progress of weaponry led later catastrophe. Another example would be the fall of the Roman Empire. For 500 years, Rome has ruled as the world’s greatest superpower until it collapsed during the fifth century. In this representation, Roman Empire had blossomed and progressed for centuries, but eventually declined. There is a phrase that says “history repeats itself.” This means that if these examples were applied modern times, our advancing technology would ultimately lead to calamity and destruction in our

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In This Fleeting World, author David Christian attempts to cover world history in a mere 120 pages. David divides his book into three periods: the era of foragers, the agrarian era, and the modern era. Within these periods he describes the various lifestyles our ancestors lived in, the advancements achieved, and what ultimately brought upon the succeeding era. In essence, David Christian goal in writing his novel is to filter out the unnecessary jargon in world history and convey a more concise history of humanity (p. XVII). Therefore, I believe David Christian has succeeded his goal of constructing a persuasive argument backed with solid evidence.…

    • 1122 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1. The neolithic revolution was the period in time in which the introduction of agriculture led people to transition from the wandering nomadic lifestyle to settled life. During this time, nomads, or people who wandered from place to place in search of food, began to domesticate animals and crops so that they no longer had to follow or hunt for their food sources; because of this, these former nomads were able to create farms using the crops they domesticated and settlements and were able to use their domesticated animals, not only as a source of food, but also as a source of companionship, a tool to assist with farm labor, and for transportation. The development of farming spread to other areas of society as well, as the creation of new tools for farming, new types of shelter, and clothing among other things began to emerge. As time went on, the techniques and tools used for farming were improved and new tools to assist in the storing, sowing, planting of seeds, and measuring of time were created; these innovations caused farms to create surpluses of food, which lead to the growth of population and the…

    • 402 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dbq Animal Domestication

    • 155 Words
    • 1 Pages

    The domestication of animals and plants played a significant role in the lives of Neolithic people. Throughout the Paleolithic Age, groups of people hunted for animals and gathered naturally grown food. As T. Walter Wallbank mentioned, “Often described as the ‘first economic revolution’ in the history of man, this momentous change from a food-gathering to a food-producing economy initiated the Neolithic Age” (Document 1). Agriculture and economics became an important factor during this revolution. This concept is also pointed out in the comic by the Science Museum of Minnesota, “Plant and animal domestication is the key.…

    • 155 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Even though we consider ourselves to be a highly advanced society today, I don’t think I can say that we are the better society. What this book has made me realize is that there is never a right way to structure your society that is better than all other societies. Every society is unique and has its share of benefits and drawbacks, including our own. Agrarian societies have complex ecological systems that utilize every last resource. Native American societies only took what they needed from the land to preserve nature as much as possible.…

    • 1438 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rhetorical Analysis

    • 292 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The author presents his claim that the idea of agriculture was detrimental to our lives as human beings, and he goes on in the rest of the article to support this argument with scientific evidence provided by various paleopatholigists and his own personal experiences. Though the article is classified as an editorial, the author visits New Guinea and uses his experiences there to further his claim. This conflict is present throughout the text, for the author portrays his view of the effect of agriculture on the primitive and modern lives of human beings. He believes that agriculture posed as a threat to our advancement as human beings and opposes the idea altogether.…

    • 292 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Just because we have the technology and skill set to create and invent all these new things affecting our way of life, does not mean we have to alter so much that we become entangled in a web of destruction.…

    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Intro: Food has shaped the world into what it is in the modern day, and food played a major role in the history of mankind. In An Edible History of Humanity, by Tom Standage, Standage focuses on how food has had an impact of food from when hunter-gatherers were around, to the present day. Standage’s goal is to teach the reader the overall importance of food in our world, more than just what it is to most people now, something that we eat to fuel ourselves, which usually tastes good. He wants to look beyond the eating aspect of the food and tell us the importance of it way before we were alive. His choice of teaching history based on food and food only is quite an interesting idea.…

    • 1762 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dangerous War Prompt

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages

    As seen in my essay “This refers to all the new weapons, increase on civilian deaths and the chaos…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Morality In Cat's Cradle

    • 425 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Over the span of time humans have inhabited the Earth, we have constantly innovated to come up with new solutions to issues that we have come across. Technology can be a wonderful thing, but it begs the question: just because science is able to create something, should it? Some of the inventions that started out being created for the sake of knowledge or innovation are capable of being used for nefarious purposes A prime example of this is the ability to split atoms apart, the process by which the atom bomb was created. A major theme in the book Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut is that the things that science can create to help us now may end up being our downfall if we lose our morality.…

    • 425 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    We have sent a man to the moon, we can get to somewhere miles away in minutes, and we can communicate with someone from across the globe almost instantaneously. These are just a few examples of the fantastic technology that we have developed that allows us to do things that our ancestors could never have even dreamed of. Surely, civilization as we know it is far superior to the pre-neolithic people. Well, according to John Lanchester’s article, “A Case Against Civilization,” our perceived achievements is nothing to be proud of. Walter Benjamin, a great German Jewish cultural critic, once said that every complicated and beautiful thing humanity ever made has, if you look at it long enough, shows a shadow, a history of oppression, and Lanchester’s…

    • 1083 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As explained in his infamous essay, “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race,” Jared Diamond argues that the adoption of agriculture led to many negative consequences that have hindered the general livelihood of humans. His argument is based on the comparison of the lifestyles of agriculture-based societies and hunter-gatherers, claiming that the latter lacked many of the challenging aspects that emerged with the beginnings of domestication and civilization. Diamond’s main points of focus are the negative health effects of people’s new diet, the increased spread of diseases, and the development of societal inequalities. In general, I agree with Diamond’s claim that the adoption of agriculture had some negative effects on humans,…

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    'The Neolithic Revolution was an extraordinary change in history for the nomads life. During that time, the nomads started to discover agriculture which lead from farming-gathering to permanent settlements, the foundation of social class, and the rise of civilization. In the results of farming, the development caused mankind to be undernourished and prone to illness. The development of farming, at some point, caused the neolithic people to had a poor diet because of carrying trades with other crowded societies which lead to disease and parasites spread.…

    • 245 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Farming really changed how human’s lived and how the earth was impacted. As the authors said, “People now construct their own environments; concrete and steel supersede, dirt and trees. Heat exchange devises warm where it is cold and cool where it is hot. We can make water flow in deserts and create breathable atmospheres in the vacuum of space” (Ornstein and Ehrlich 44). The authors were right when they said that humans need to be proud of what they’ve accomplished but there’s a lot of work to be done to keep on accomplishing things.…

    • 1789 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Next, I will talk about how farming has impacted the way that we eat and what we eat. After farming, we will take a journey through how the weather effects the plants and animals, also how that since the first societies they could not have survived if it weren’t for the Fertile Crescent. The first reason that should be known about the world is according to Diamond (1999 pg 36) some fossils in Africa indicate that the evolutionary line leading through gorillas/monkeys to us had archived a substantially upright posture by around 4 million years ago. Around 2.5 billion years ago, their relative brain size and body size started to increase (Diamond, 1999 pg 36). This helps us understand more about how man came to…

    • 850 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Matrix Dystopia

    • 1752 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Technology is a double-edged sword. Future innovations could change the lives of millions, possibly eradicating many world problems such as world hunger and poor sanitation or living conditions. But just as possible is the event of an apocalypse caused by technology. Therefore, although there are countless benefits of future technology, we must be aware of the dangers it could bring, such as unemployment, addiction, and advancement for the…

    • 1752 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays