From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Apr 03 2002 - 11:13:58 MST
"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" wrote:
>
> Jared Diamond asks whether agriculture was worth it:
>
> http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/anthro/learning/lifeways/hg_ag/worst_mistake.html
>
> >From my perspective, of course, it doesn't matter much whether agriculture
> was worth it; the history of life on Earth is divided into pre- and
> post-Singularity, not pre- and post- agriculture; you have to expect that
> life on pre-Singularity Earth is going to suck. Others may accuse Jared of
> Luddism, but like it or not, we're waaaay out of our ancestral environment;
> and regardless of whether it's worth it from a personal perspective (it is
> from mine; I like knowing stuff), things are going to be weird around here
> until we ditch the hunter-gatherer phenotype. (After that it gets *really*
> weird, but we'll be able to cope.)
On the contrary, since its agriculture that causes 90% of the
environmental damage, come up with a technological solution (like
photosynthetic/photovoltaic human skin) and there won't be a need for
it, we can all go back to a hunter gatherer lifestyle to obtain our
protein and vitamins, leaving most of our caloric needs to our skin's
ability to catch rays.
Agriculture is also the cause of statism, another blight on humanity.
Eliminate it and the need for statism will die out.
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