Re: Why the West has 'won'.

Chris Behrens (cbehrens@deltav.net)
Wed, 6 Aug 1997 15:20:10 -0500


----------
> From: CurtAdams@aol.com
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: Re: Why the West has 'won'.
> Date: Wednesday, August 06, 1997 2:22 PM
>
>
> In a message dated 8/5/97 9:49:15 PM, solutions@deltav.net (Cyberlogin
> Solutions) wrote:
>
> >As long as we're tossing around personal theories here...
> >
> >Agricultural societies will tend towards "civilization", in the
> >technological sense, anyway.
> >Why? It is only through agriculture that long term food surpluses can be
> >created. This leads
> >to two things: spare time, for intellectual pursuits, and the written
word,
> >used to identify
> >personal property.
>
> I don't know about the spare time business. Hunter-gatherer societies
have
> lots of free time. I think the increase in population (hence, more
computing
> power) is far more significant.

The population growth is a consequence of the food surplus.
Hunter-gatherers do
not consistently have spare time. That's the trick.

I think that continues today, and that a
> significant part of current development is due to bringing ever-larger
> numbers of people into our market and science systems.
>

> >only those long term food surpluses
> >can move an army over long distances.
>
> Up to the invention of gunpowder, the most powerful armies were those of
the
> Central Asian pastoralists. Long term food surpluses can take
> non-agricultural form; they used grazing animals, which had the distinct
> advantage of moving themselves.

But not the people...

Would you agree that agriculture leads to the population explosion?

Chris Behrens
cbehrens@deltav.net
http://www.deltav.net

"Politics is the art of the possible. That is why only
mediocre minds are attracted to it; great minds seek
the impossible."
- Arthur C. Clarke