The basic question, as Prof. Diamond puts it is: "How do you show that the lives of people 10,000 years ago got better when they abandoned hunting and gathering for farming?" One can extend this: How do you know the Industrial Revolution made people lives better (read Dickens to see the inhuman conditions), or the nuclear revolution (Chernobyl, Japan), or the Internet revolution (the ADD generation texting, sexting, etc). Prof. Diamond thesis seems to be that we made a huge mistake by moving from hunter gatherer to agricultural society, which, inevitably, brought about most of the evils we are fighting with now. Proof? Just look at the idyllic life of current hunter gatherers.
To back his claim, he puts forth arguments ranging from absurd
"As for the claim that agriculture encouraged the flowering of art by providing us with leisure time, modern hunter-gatherers have at least as much free time as do farmers. The whole emphasis on leisure time as a critical factor seems to me misguided. Gorillas have had ample free time to build their own Parthenon, had they wanted to."
to anecdotal, i.e. no proof at all
"Farming may have encouraged inequality between the sexes, as well... Women in agricultural societies were sometimes made beasts of burden. In New Guinea farming communities today I often see women staggering under loads of vegetables and firewood while the men walk empty-handed. Once while on a field trip ..."
And the final stroke, the masterful FUD-laden last paragraph:
"As our second midnight approaches, will the plight of famine-stricken peasants gradually spread to engulf us all? Or will we somehow achieve those seductive blessings that we imagine behind agriculture's glittering facade, and that have so far eluded us? "
Setting aside that there is no global shortage of food (does not mean that nobody's is hungry, but the reasons are complex and food shortage is not one of them), most of this is, at best speculative.
If you liked his point of view, than you may also like Prof. Eric Pianka's thesis that there are too many people on earth and if an airborne Ebola virus kills 90% it would be a good thing (http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/Everybody.html).
The problem with these views is that they resonate with a certain mindset, people who think we have too much science and technology in our lives and it would have been better to live like the "so-called" primitive people. One recent example that comes to mind is the movie Babies (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1020938/). Here, the life of the two babies living in primitive (not so-called, really primitive) conditions in Africa and Kazakhstan is discreetly shown to be better and more free than their counterparts in the US and Japan.
As for the claim that agriculture encouraged the flowering of art by providing us with leisure time, modern hunter-gatherers have at least as much free time as do farmers.
I think this is actually true, in a weird way. We work, including commuting, personal errands, and house chores, about 2700 hours per year. Most pre-agrarian people did not work as many hours. Their "work" was a lot more dangerous (throwing spears at angry, large animals) and probably more intense. The stakes were also a lot higher: if they fail, they die. That said, they probably only worked about 1600-2400 hours per year because there wasn't all that much work for them to do. During the off-season (hunting-wise) and during the winter (for gatherers) it's also likely that they slept 10-18 hours per day due to low metabolism/semi-hibernation. (Many medieval people in the Alps went into semi-hibernation in the winter, sleeping 16-20 hours per day.) Whether this is to be considered "free time" is uncertain and probably somewhat subjective. It's unclear what they did. It's likely that their lives were very boring by our standards, exciting only on account of the extreme danger.
AFAIK, in hunter-gatherer sopcities people are divided into two groups: those that can hunt and those who cannot, the latter group including elderly, children, women, and very few other people, e.g. the shaman (this also disproves his point about gender equality, in such socities women are, by necessity, second class). So, it is very hard, esp. for men, to specialize in anything other than hunting, e.g. arts or crafts, unless it brings an immediate utility to the tribe.
Another point is: more people = more brain diversity -> easier for people with interesting ideas to be in the society, the intellectual gene pool, if you will. And an agri lifestyle definitely supports larger tribes.
> in such socities women are, by necessity, second class
Not necessarily. Please take into account that in all but most extreme climates, most of the raw calories in a hunter-gatherer group comes from the gathering part, which is mostly a female activity. The problem with a pure gathering diet is that it tends to be protein and fat deficient, so one strategic contribution of the male hunters is not to keep the bellies full, but the diet balanced. Neolithic farmers discovered the hard way that a belly full of grains still leads you to malnutrition.
The other big strategic contribution of male hunters to their communities is protection. The only way a bunch slow moving, child bearing women can wander safely in the wilderness gathering food and wood is to bring a couple of armed men along. This men were probably too old or too young to join the hunters, but would provide a valuable service in protecting their people of predators (human or otherwise).
Not to imply that women are unable to defend themselves... but Nature does not care about political correctness. Females are more valuable to the reproductive capacity of the tribe, so it makes more sense to have males run higher risks.
To back his claim, he puts forth arguments ranging from absurd
"As for the claim that agriculture encouraged the flowering of art by providing us with leisure time, modern hunter-gatherers have at least as much free time as do farmers. The whole emphasis on leisure time as a critical factor seems to me misguided. Gorillas have had ample free time to build their own Parthenon, had they wanted to."
to anecdotal, i.e. no proof at all
"Farming may have encouraged inequality between the sexes, as well... Women in agricultural societies were sometimes made beasts of burden. In New Guinea farming communities today I often see women staggering under loads of vegetables and firewood while the men walk empty-handed. Once while on a field trip ..."
And the final stroke, the masterful FUD-laden last paragraph:
"As our second midnight approaches, will the plight of famine-stricken peasants gradually spread to engulf us all? Or will we somehow achieve those seductive blessings that we imagine behind agriculture's glittering facade, and that have so far eluded us? "
Setting aside that there is no global shortage of food (does not mean that nobody's is hungry, but the reasons are complex and food shortage is not one of them), most of this is, at best speculative.
If you liked his point of view, than you may also like Prof. Eric Pianka's thesis that there are too many people on earth and if an airborne Ebola virus kills 90% it would be a good thing (http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/Everybody.html).
The problem with these views is that they resonate with a certain mindset, people who think we have too much science and technology in our lives and it would have been better to live like the "so-called" primitive people. One recent example that comes to mind is the movie Babies (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1020938/). Here, the life of the two babies living in primitive (not so-called, really primitive) conditions in Africa and Kazakhstan is discreetly shown to be better and more free than their counterparts in the US and Japan.