The Worst Mistake in Human History (It Wasn't War)

In 1987, a respected scientist called it "the worst mistake in the history of the human race." He wasn't talking about war. He was talking about bread. For almost all of human history, we lived as hunter-gatherers — working around 15 hours a week, eating dozens of different plants, answering to no one. Then farming arrived. And the bones tell a story your school textbook didn't. In this video: — How hunter-gatherers worked only 12–19 hours a week — Why humans got shorter after farming — by up to 6 inches — The Dickson Mounds skeletons: more hunger, more disease, shorter lives — How stored grain created the first kings and inequality — Why the oldest writing on Earth was basically tax receipts — Why your exhausted Monday might be a 10,000-year-old problem ⏱ CHAPTERS 0:00 — The worst mistake in human history 0:39 — The myth of progress 1:52 — What the bones reveal 3:16 — The birth of kings 4:06 — Grain, taxes and the first writing 5:00 — Why farming won anyway 5:37 — Your week vs. your ancestors' 6:08 — Six minutes to midnight 📚 SOURCES — Jared Diamond, "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race," Discover Magazine (May 1987) — George J. Armelagos et al., studies of the Dickson Mounds skeletal population, Illinois — James C. Scott, "Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States" (2017) — Yuval Noah Harari, "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" (2011) — Richard B. Lee, "The !Kung San: Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society" (1979) #history #anthropology #ancienthumans