The Agricultural Revolution Empowered Us As A Species But As Individuals Made Our Lives Worse

There is a big difference between the collective power of human kind and the individual life. In terms of collective power, obviously Agriculture made us more powerful. Without agriculture we could not have cities and empires and so forth.

At the same time, the life of the average person becomes much worse. If you think about it from the viewpoint… of the average peasant woman in Ancient Egypt, life is harder than as a hunter gatherer 10,000 years previously. You have to work much harder.

The human body and mind evolved in adaptation to the life of hunter-gatherers. You go to the forest to look for mushrooms. You climb trees to pick apples… And suddenly, what you do all day as a peasant is you bring water from the river in buckets and you harvest the corn and you grind the corn. It’s much more difficult for the body and it’s very boring to the mind. 

Even today, the jobs of hundreds of millions of people around the world are far more boring than going to the forest to look for mushrooms. 

– Yuval Noah Harari (יובל נח הררי‎‎), historian, author of Bill’s Gates’ favorite book ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ (it is the 3rd most Recommended and Gifted books of guests on The Tim Ferriss Show as listed in his book ‘Tools of Titans’) as well as its follow up ‘Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow‘), and a tenured professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

We, the human race, have domesticated several animals.  A plant domesticated us.  Wheat forced us to wait for it to grow and harvest it, stick it in a silo for years when the crop is poor, and transition from a diet of a diverse and nutritious  foods to all refined carbs, all the time. It turned us from active hunters to static farmers.

Most of the leading pathologies of the modern world are metabolic conditions: cardiovascular disease including hypertension, cancer, diabetes, stroke, arthritis, and Alzheimer’s Disease.  If you include depression, osteoarthritis, and lower back pain that are some of the most common conditions seen by general practitioners (family doctors) that are all related to physical inactivity, disproportionate forces being put through the body and lack of exercise and/or mental stimulation, then Yuval’s quote rings true.

I often tell my lower back pain patients that the reason a large proportion of the population gets such a condition is because we are evolved to be hunter-gatherers, not sit all day at computers, do repetitive tasks then do home and sit in from of another screen.

To live a long and healthy life, you need to reproduce, as best you can, the diet and lifestyle of our ancestors.

Move in three-dimensions, all six directions. Limit refined carbs. Eat colourful, seasonal, free-range foods.

This quote was said when Yuval’s was on The James Altucher Show podcast. If you want to listen to the full podcast you can do so below.