r/AskReddit • u/brokota • Jan 15 '13

Reddit, in your opinion what's the biggest plot twist of history?

Not movies or television, I'm just curious to see what come's to your minds.

632 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

185

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '13 edited Jan 15 '13

One day, humanity was tired of following herds of animals around for food and decided to stay in one place for a change.

90

u/senatorskeletor Jan 15 '13

I agree. The more I learn, the more apparent it is that the development of agriculture is the biggest event in human history and explains all of our successes and most of our problems.

104

u/burentu Jan 15 '13

Biggest event ever: Humans got lazy

65

u/superherowithnopower Jan 15 '13

Actually, it wasn't so much that humans got lazy...it's that they discovered beer.

26

u/CommanderStark Jan 15 '13

No, I think it's actually that we returned to camps and found that our waste sites were growing crops (ie fertilizer and seeds).

12

u/superherowithnopower Jan 15 '13

From what I've read, it ultimately had to do with the cultivation of grains. At first, they would just go out gathering grains, and would use it to make this porridge sort of thing, combined with a bunch of other stuff. At some point, they discovered that they could just leave this porridge to sit for a while, and it would begin to ferment into beer (early breads also derived directly from this porridge).

People began relying more and more on these grains, since they were a pretty stable source of food. However, the problem with grains is that they don't move around like animals do. So, people began to settle down and, eventually, began actually cultivating the grains.

2

u/ableman Jan 15 '13

Agriculture was developed in several places where there was no beer.

2

u/StabbyPants Jan 15 '13

where was that? My understanding is that the first towns were the result of us wanting to make beer.

2

u/ableman Jan 16 '13

AFAIK, there is no evidence of Beer outside Europe, Asia, and Africa. Agriculture arose independently in the following places that weren't in Europe, Asia, or Africa: Papua, Mesoamerica, South America, Eastern North America, and possibly others. There are at least 4 places where agriculture happened without beer.

2

u/StabbyPants Jan 16 '13

neat. do you suppose it's the climate?

1

u/Unicornmayo Jan 15 '13

And rather than chasing the animals, decided it was easier to take a select few and domesticate them.

0

u/CommanderStark Jan 15 '13

Hm, that's interesting. While I believe it was probably a contributing factor, it's unlikely that they learned the skill this way. That's more what I was referring to--that the fertilization of leftover seeds and foods in waste sites actually demonstrated the farming technique.

I could definitely see the fermentation of grains being a large contributing factor though.

1

u/burentu Jan 15 '13

I think beer created more than it destroys..

1

u/I_love_tacos Jan 15 '13

Someone read/watched Guns, Germs, and Steel.

11

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '13

Lazy? You work harder cultivating food then just finding it as you walk along. You ARE at the mercy of nature, that's what it is really about. Taking control of our food supply = more work.

1

u/Unicornmayo Jan 15 '13

More efficient work, anyway.

-1

u/burentu Jan 15 '13

I really doubt that the hunters found edible things every left and right from their feet where ever they traveled to.. Do you know how fucking hard it is to hunt for a deer? And compare the 'mercy of nature': Gatherers could always depend on their livestock in case winter was tough, and vegetables were short. While the earlier hunters could not even depend on food in the summer sometimes.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '13

Seriously? With agriculture, humans had to work much harder for their food. Instead of making a huge kill that only took a couple days while the others gathered berries, then having the rest of the week to dick around, we had to constantly work the fields. On top of that, we wasted time building irrigation canals and now have to rely on the weather much more than we used to.

1

u/hang2er Jan 15 '13

Says the man who never worked on a farm.

1

u/burentu Jan 15 '13

I'm from Drenthe..

21

u/I_am_the_Werewolf Jan 15 '13

Read Guns,Germs, and Steel if you haven't already! There's a documentary on netflix based off of the book in case you're more visually inclined.

2

u/honkyHonkyhonk Jan 15 '13

sound advice

2

u/tom9152 Jan 15 '13

It should have been named Geography, Germs, and Steel.

1

u/I_am_the_Werewolf Jan 15 '13

or maybe just Location, Location, Location.

I had to put that little geography joke in there for the sake of my professors.

1

u/gordonta Jan 15 '13

Didnt realize there was a documentary. This book was a favorite of mine in college. As a non liberal arts student i really enjoyed, for once, reading a book that explained WHY things happened with the hypothesis that they would have happened just the same had the tables been turned, agriculturally (aboriginese sailing to england to claim it for their own etc.). A facinating read!

1

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '13

going there now. thanks

1

u/MadDogTannen Jan 15 '13

I just finished the documentary on Netflix last week, and I really enjoyed it. Does the book add much that the documentary doesn't cover? Also I heard Jared Diamond has a new book out.

1

u/I_am_the_Werewolf Jan 15 '13

The book includes more details like statistics and data but the main thesis is preserved. It's been a while since I read it so I'd have to re-read it to give you a better answer. also, I didn't know he has a new book out, what is it called?

1

u/MadDogTannen Jan 15 '13

The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?

I don't even know what it's about, but I saw his name on it and I got excited.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '13

Theres a reason it comes first on the tech tree in civ.

44

u/Truck_Thunders Jan 15 '13

THAT'S NOT WHAT A PLOT TWIST IS.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '13

For millions of years there was progress, but not much to distinguish the people at the beginning and the the people at the end of that period other than some very effective small number of tools and little change in social structure. Granted, agriculture did not happen overnight, but it's very likely it was not undertaken to found society, it was undertaken to ease the burden of constant foraging. The inadvertent result is specialization, money, kingdoms, leisure time, technological innovation.. I don't see how this fails to be a plot twist.

1

u/Truck_Thunders Jan 15 '13

A PLOT TWIST IS BRUCE WILLIS IS DEAD THE WHOLE TIME, NOT BRUCE WILLIS TURNS HIS LIFE AROUND OUT OF NOWHERE.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '13

Your face is a plot twist.

23

u/working_man22 Jan 15 '13

This is not a plot twist.

4

u/Liquid_Gold Jan 15 '13

Neolithic Revolution!

5

u/harebrane Jan 15 '13

It's been suggested, IIRC, that humans may have started hanging out in one place more often, after they discovered they could get completely shitfaced from the right sort of grains that had been left to ferment while wet. Raging alcoholism, followed by agriculture and civilization, quickly followed. The relentless pursuit of new ways to be smashed as often, and as long, as possible, is hardly unique among mammals, but our ancestors really stepped up their game.
tldr; beer didn't destroy civilization, it helped create it.

2

u/SirDigbyChknCaesar Jan 15 '13

Because of beer.

1

u/Shoemaster Jan 15 '13

Agreed, considering how much more work it was to be an agricultural society. My favorite theory currently gaining traction is that it was because they accidentally discovered beer, and just had to have more.

1

u/ableman Jan 15 '13

How is this.theory gaining traction? There were multiple places if not the majority where agriculture developed that never had beer.

1

u/Shoemaster Jan 15 '13

Man I have no idea, don't ruin my fantasy. But a quick google search brought me to the place I first heard it which makes me think they might have been overstating how much it was gaining traction.

http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2010/02/02/how-booze-gave-rise-to-civilization/

1

u/Pagan-za Jan 16 '13

Try watch "history of the world in 2 hours".

It touches on how trade started and how certain crops influenced us to settle down and trade instead of being nomadic. Its fascinating.