[bcheung]

We all came from hunter-gatherers. If hunter-gatherers didn't want more then logically they would have stayed hunter-gatherers. So, why do we have the current civilization? I suspect because being cold, not having medicine, refrigeration, running water, plumbing, transportation, etc sucks.

[bcheung]

I'm not making any assumptions. I'm just pointing out that people had the opportunity to remain hunter-gathers and they didn't. They were human thus the evidence of human nature doesn't support your argument.

I don't see a whole lot of people wanted to go from their current lives to hunter-gathers.

You're also talking to someone who has a large library of homesteading books and is interested in permaculture and sustainable living. I love technology and would never want to sacrifice my standard of living.

[Scarfleece]

Just because someone changed their means of obtaining food doesn't mean they did it out of an unquenchable thirst for more. It's that simple.

[Scarfleece]

You're making the presumption that people adopted agriculture because it "gave them more", when there could be a vast number of other reasons for adopting it.

More than likely, the first tribes that started becoming farmers did so because the area they lived in become bad for obtaining food (whether due to the extinction of big game events, or moving to a naturally inhospitable area). Because of the nature of agriculture, this gave them a lot more power, and they started conquering tribes.

When your choice is between "get slaughtered by the farmers", "have your food supply diminished by the farmers", or "become a farmer", guess which choice you pick?

This is all speculation, though. I'm merely trying to get you to realize that there are many reasons for technological progress (esp. the adoption of agriculture), the least of all being that "it's human nature to want more".

[dragonwriter]

> More than likely, the first tribes that started becoming farmers did so because the area they lived in become bad for obtaining food

We know where early agriculture and husbandry developed, and it wasn't in "naturally inhospitable areas" in either case. Even if so, making an area with poor food into one with better food is quite obviously an example of acting based on a desire to get more than you can as a hunter-gatherer, so accepting your own argument here disproves your claim that hunter-gatherers were content with what they got and didn't seek to get more.

> I'm merely trying to get you to realize that there are many reasons for technological progress (esp. the adoption of agriculture), the least of all being that "it's human nature to want more".

But your own defense of that position has been to present an argument that boils down to the motivation being exactly to get more.

[bcheung]

They had no game and thus no food. So they switched to agriculture because they wanted food.

(food > no food) == more

[Scarfleece]

"Wanting enough food" is not the same as "always wanting more".