For hundreds of thousands of years, human beings survived as hunter-gatherers. Small tribes roam the land to forage and kill their prey to survive. Then about 12,000 years ago, dubbed the Neolithic Revolution, was the first time agriculture began to pop up. Arguably, the first massive demonstration of human being’s existence investing in a future not yet realized. The phenomenon of agriculture has been argued up and down about why humans began to farm. In fact, discoveries in this field have shown that farming made human life much more difficult than hunting and gathering. One of the leading ideas of why humans would do this is simply that they didn’t make a choice. After a few generations, the choice had already been made. You were born into farming and so you became a farmer. This is the power of lock-in. That once we have established an order of doing things around here, we fall in line to reinforce the status quo. The friction to change is too great and so you stay with what you know and what you got. It is what our biology has programmed us to do. To fit in with the culture and the people around us, to seek approval from your parents and peers. This worked for a long time and, as author Jared Diamond has famously pointed out, human history looked something like this:
- Humans invent a new technology such as farming.
- Which leads to an increase in food supply.
- Which then leads to a spike in population.
- Which then leaves some humans to live a more comfortable life.
- Which would lead to exploration, technology, or trade.
- Which would increase the spread of viruses and bacteria.
- Which would increase immunity.
- Which would lead to a spike in population.
- Which would lead to more guns, germs, and steel.
This is obviously oversimplified but you get the point. As technology grew, so did food supplies, and as food supplies grew so did populations which would lead to more of all these things.
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