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#685 Kim Sterelny - The Pleistocene Social Contract: Culture and Cooperation in Human Evolution

The Dissenter

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The Biggest Social Factor of Agriculture

Once farming developed and we have the first human settlements and human societies based on agriculture, they became more hierarchical. So what would you say were the main changes brought by agriculture? And I mean, when societies became more sedentary, butbased on agriculture, what changed in terms of social dynamics? Probably the biggest single factor is a change in social scale. You know, so instead of people living with 20 other people, you know, they're living with 2000 other people or 5,000 other people. It makes warfare immensely more tempting.

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