The secret life of brewers yeast (book)

[kiwi Bruce]

There a very specific instance that I can recite where the "booze before civilization" falls on it's face. The Polynesians, and the New Zealand Maori people in specific. Very advanced neolithic civilization, amazing seafarers and very war-like with heavily defended village sites, called Pa, that were home to tens of thousands on the big Pa sites...war canoes that held three hundred plus...and no alcohol. They farmed sweet potato which they had originally traded from South America called Kumara (not a Maori word, but Mayan) by didn't ferment these... no booze or drugs in their civilization, that had advanced farming and seafaring skills.

[HDNB]

You see "society" as created by a "death spiral" caused by agriculture. Why this pessimistic vision? People go toward progress.

progress? death spiral?

consider cycles.
everything go in cycles: waves (water, radio, light), seasons... nothing, something, nothing... weather, ideologies, yeast. Communism breeds capitalism and vice versa, just as surely as day begets night, night begets day.

city dwellers long for the country and farm boys and girls head off to the bright lights and big city.

hunter gathers cycled into agricultural society...when that fails we'll go back to hunter gatherer. (all the animals will likely be exhausted by then so guess what gets hunted...?)

people just simply want what they don't have. That's "progress" .. women are especially prone to falling into the progress trap. I sat and chatted with a young woman recently who bemoaned living alone how hard it was, she really wanted a man to share with and progress her life plan....and in almost the same breath said she wanted nothing to do with a significant other who would just harsh her happiness and free spirit. well ok, maybe it was 4 or 5 minutes later so maybe she just forgot the conversation.

Precious few ever realize that what they have is exactly what they need to "live" and be happy. If you are unhappy -rejoice! something good this way comes...if you are happy, rest assured that life will soon kick you right in the nuts. rejoice in the aching nuts...life is getting better by the moment!

[badflash]

You don't get a correct read on me.
The issue I was pointing out is that once you form city-states, there is no going back. One must be very careful equating success with what is best as well. A hunter-gathering society can not fight any sort of technological society and those with the best tech wins no matter how morally corrupt they are. Had the US sat out the war, the Nazis would have taken all of Europe, then probably taken the US as well. Hunter-gatherers simply are not allowed to co-exist. We know almost nothing about hunter-gather societies because they left nothing behind. Best evidence is that people never lived in caves. At best they used them as temporary shelters, or for religious reasons. They most likely had mobile villages like many of the great plains tribe in the US.
Accumulation leads to more accumulation. We take far more than we need and it is getting worse. I am a hog farmer. I get most of my feed from the stuff the grocery stores feel they can no longer sell. You would not believe the quality and volume of the stuff I get. That is not even the tip of the iceberg. Society is an ever increasing productivity race, and we are reaching our limits. We don't have to worry about bears, or even attack from other nations. Instead we kill ourselves by the way we live, and there is no escape. I am now retired and decompressing as much as possible.

[kiwi Bruce]

What your describing is the "Resource/Population Bell-curve theory" There is a real fear that we will eventually reach the tipping point...top of the curve (at about 15 Billion people) where we will start to use up more resources than are available and humanity starts going backwards. We are on our way to the top of the curve now...as we deplete the resources the population starts to collapse and we end up...about 30 thousand years from now, as wandering hunter/gatherers again...with no booze!

[badflash]

You should read "The Mote in God's Eye". Interesting take on this issue.