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Comment by klipt | Hacker News Reader

Of course, farming didn't overtake hunter-gathering because farmers are happier. It overtook because farming can feed massive armies capable of conquering hunter-gatherer land by force.

Although I guess, in the end, not being conquered/enslaved/killed might make people happier.

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Is it true or just extrapolated hint ?

I like to criticize "modern" societies, but some times I think that having predictable source of food was an obvious goal for any human being.

I'm just saying that in the end, happiness isn't the metric reality optimises for so much as survival. Evolution also tends to prod happiness to correlate with survival, but there might be some lag when society/technology is moving much faster than genes can.

Can't say but my happiness, and I believe lots of others too, looks like a sunny sunday morning with a happy bunch (family/friends), and some activities to keep our local environment afloat (food, shelter, aesthetics) during the other days.

Predictably bland and plentiful or unpredictably punctuated and exciting to find? What makes humans happy?

> some times I think that having predictable source of food was an obvious goal for any human being.

I don't have the citation, but IIRC, monkeys get higher dopamine spikes when success at a task is probable but not guaranteed. Having something that is unpredictable but likely to yield a reward is what motivates effort. Having a predictable supply of food is less stressful, but possibly, not as motivating. Maybe not as satisfying as successfully hunting an animal.

Sidenote: it's also been theorized that browsing social media is addictive because of the unpredictable aspect. You can keep scrolling, there is always new content, and there is some chance that you might find something interesting, but it's not guaranteed.

Sure, I believe so too. We like randomness but not too much.

About social media my pov is that it's also a very non expensive provider of whatever hormone spike we crave. You move a finger, you get a bit of bias reinforcement, repeat. Try to read a physics book, and enjoy the unpredictability of the content.. yet less than 1% is addicted to libraries.

Maybe, maybe in the end monkeys ended up preferring teaming up (less randomness), to do random-filled activities like war. Reminds me of the article about war veteran not able to live in society after war, they craved the tension and the simplicity. War "is good".

Overpopulation is its own kind of mutual assured destruction.

Countries keep growing in numbers of people because other countries are also growing in numbers of people, and this correlates to their economic and military power.

Who says hunter gatherers didn’t conquer and enslave?

Anthropologists?

You might want to read this:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/11/30/anthroscience

You can now study ancient DNA as an alternative method of studying ancient history. It seems there was a lot of killing of males and capturing females leading to population replacement.

aDNA is a complement, not a replacement for ancient history and anthropology.

Interesting article, but it doesn't talk about DNS or killing

hunter/gatherer societies are always small and relatively disorganized. There is a limit to the number of people that you can feed hunting unless you are always moving to fresh territories, so there is a limit also to desire to build cities or to the number of your permanent structures. And you shouldn't allow other tribes to enter in your territory or you will suffer from hunger. You can have problems in winter or with harsh climates

Agriculture is a different history. Means big cities with big walls, easy to defend. Agriculture and farming can feed much more people so you can have a bigger army and bigger buildings with enough room for harvests (so you don't need to move in winter). Hunters/gatherers can conquer and enslave for a while but can't feed all people, and dissolve in smaller groups when reaching a critical point.

The same principle applies to the army that can conquer, but would not survive at long term without the civils that create the foods and services.

Just because no one recorded the histories of hunter gatherers, doesn’t mean they were all sweetness and light. They may not have been able to raise large armies, but someone was raping the daughters of neighboring tribes. There is a reason we still have some Neanderthal genes.

I share a somewhat pessimistic view of our ancestors, but it is worth noting that we have evidence of mixed genes and not rape. There are ways for genes to mix consensually, although there is no evidence to support that either. We only know that they had sex, and children who were fertile, nothing more.

chimpanzees rape and murder, it’s hard to imagine any human tribe that didn’t.

I agree with the general notion, but of course humans are not chimps, we just share a common ancestor. We have evidence of violence and cannibalism however, and while the latter can be understood in non-violent contexts, but also violence ones, the problem either way mos that evidence is scarce.

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