I was not impressed with Sapiens, especially Hariri's belief that the agricultural revolution was history's biggest fraud, and his belief that hunter-gatherer societies were better ( I don't know, how when 90% of your time was spent foraging for food and fighting for survival). Everyone agrees the agricultural revolution was the most dramatic event, allowed us to farm and afforded us the leisure time to pursue art, science and make the big discoveries on which modern civilization is based on.
How good of a deal hunting and gathering were depends on the abundance of resources. Hunter-gatherers in abundant areas lived happy lives and resisted civilization (eg the Comanche) if not outright conquering it so they would leave their hunting grounds alone (eg the Mongols). Hunter-gatherers who faced scarcity adopted agriculture as a means of survival and lived in fear of hunter-gatherers for centuries.
> allowed us to farm and afforded us the leisure time
The error in this is the thinking that the gains from agriculture accrue evenly to everyone. In reality, the "us" who are farmers and the "us" with leisure time are not the same people. You can see this by looking at the economic stratification for every single agricultural society... ever?
I would highly recommend reading James C Scott's 'Against the Grain' [0].
His thesis is that agriculture came in quite slowly, as part of a semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer society. It was only once the natural environment was depleted and agriculture became the only option to feed yourself that fixed, sedentary agriculture took over.
This is all tied to the rise of states, which could only obtain stability once their taxation base was locked in place. It's the best explanation I've seen for why "we" would choose agriculture.
Theres actually research around this, the average daily time spent hunting and foraging (working) in order to survive and the daily time we spend now working in order to survive, also the daily time people spent 1000 years ago. The conclusion was something like people today actually spend more hours working than in hunting and foraging times
His arguments are agriculture's health and societal effects. We wanted X from agriculture but we got X+1 (what human achievement doesn't result in this?) where +1 is some unwanted consequence (having to have more children to maintain a farmstead, rotting teeth, increase in belly size, the loss of the tribe (maybe alluding to dunber's number) His points make sense, in my opinion. He understands the pros are great but his argument is we did not foresee (or adjust very well to) the cons that come with the agricultural revolution.
I came to the same conclusion after reading his book. His book is pretty terrible.
His viewpoint (while interesting) was not very grounded at all. Simply because agriculture requires more work doesn't mean it's inferior to hunting. Try hunting an antelope if you've got a sprained ankle.
Another perspective that irked me was his blind faith that modern society is built purely conceptual ideas. Citing empires, car brands, and money. In reality all these things work because they provide practical benefits. Few people or groups go out of their way to work purely on ideological bases, and those who do, do so on a rational philosophy. Let alone as soon as it becomes impracticable (See Maslow's hierarchy of needs).
I think you've simplified his view a bit too much. Agriculture not only requires more work but...
* Worse nutrition because you're eating only the narrow selection you can grow.
* Poor nutrition means worse health, digestive, and dental problems.
* Agriculture leads to higher population densities and living in proximity to animals which in turn leads to plagues.
* Agriculture leads to population growth and consequent vulnerability to weather, floods, etc.
* Agriculture leads to population density, leads to social organization, leads to war, genocide, feudalism, etc
There are lots of problems with primitive agriculture and it seems perfectly plausible that it would be a better life to be an early hunter gatherer than an early farmer. Try tilling a field with a sprained ankle, or with rotting teeth after a bad harvest to feed your starving children. Etc.
