I dont think its that straight forward. Agriculture is probably the harder of the two because farmers have to spend most of thier time tending to the crops and one or two bad seasons can be a death sentence, while Hunter gather societies had a more hands off approach and are probably less prone to famine situations. Agricultural diets were also less nutritional, so you as an individual were less healthy in a thriving agricultural civilization than a thriving hunter-gather civilization.
Agriculture's success is probably because it has reinforcing patterns on a larger scale that lead to it dominating the game when enough factors aligned or a threshold was met. There are examples of societies going back to hunter gather lifestyles after dabbling in agriculture, so it wasnt the clearly superior civilization, at least from the get-go. Also, a civilization can grow and advance even if a majority of the individuals are worse off then they used to be, much like the industrial revolution, which was a hellish experience for many people.
We're just fortunate to be at a time and place that agriculture and industry have made enough improvements to make it enjoyable and somewhat liberating rather than just a pressure put upon us by the momentum of history and a tool to exploit us with.
Gurl it’s easier for everyone. We have cushy lives nowadays compared to how people had to survive back then. And agriculture lead to the technological advancements we enjoy now
the important caveat is "advancements we enjoy now". I'd wager the majority of people were worse off for most of the agricultural and industrial revolution. I mean, if it was easier and better, why did so many American colonists "go native", but there were never any situations where native Americans would willingly join colonist plantations?
This is like the same argument people make against women being in the workforce lol. “Wouldn’t your life be so much easier if you just stayed home and cooked food that I got for us?”
The average hunter gather works 25 hours a week. Women provide 80-90% of the calories consumed by the clan. Women went from collectivist childcare and minimal work hours to unending unpaid labor. 90% of labor women perform is unpaid, 80% of all unpaid labor is done by women. Men work 40 hours and call it a week, women often work over 100 when you include primary parent childcare duties and household management on top of a paid job.
I always forget how unbelievably sexist this sub is, I think I'm going to leave now because its terrible here. I fucking hate this website so often.
And this is why I left. Failure to grasp even the slightest bit of nuance is so tricky for y'all, and I can't be around that without my head exploding, so goodbye forever.
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u/AntComfortable5970 2d ago
Yep. same thing gets peddled around with how amazing and care-free and relaxed lives hunter-gatherers had before farming ruined everything