The luxury trap and what we can learn from the agricultural revolution

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari makes you think twice about what we call "progress". We often think of big changes like the Agricultural Revolution as a massive win for humans, but Harari flips that idea on its head. He suggests it might actually be "history’s biggest fraud". It's like we thought we were getting a great deal, but ended up with the short end of the stick.

Think about it: our hunter-gatherer ancestors, they had a pretty good thing going on. They ate a diverse diet, didn't work all day, and moved around. Then we started farming, and suddenly we're stuck with wheat and cows, working way harder, and living in crowded spaces where diseases spread more easily. Yeah, the population went up, but were individuals actually happier? Nope. It’s like, we got caught up in the idea of more food, but it actually meant less variety, harder work, and a tougher life for a lot of people.

Now, that might sound pretty far removed from our lives today, but think about the modern "luxury trap" we're in. It's kind of the same thing, just with shiny gadgets and constant online shopping instead of crops and livestock. We're constantly told we need more stuff, that if we just get that new phone, the latest fashion item, or whatever, we’ll be happier. But, just like with farming, all this extra stuff actually takes up our time and energy. We have to manage, clean, worry about all our possessions, and that takes time away from things that actually make us happy. It's all a bit ironic, isn't it? We work so hard to buy these things, but then they end up owning us in a way.

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So, the parallel is this:

  1. Both the Agricultural Revolution and the luxury trap seem like steps forward, but they can make our lives more complicated and less fulfilling.
  2. Both situations involve a kind of "domestication": we thought we were in charge of the crops, but they ended up dictating our lives. Similarly, we think we control our possessions, but they often end up controlling our time and energy.
  3. We have these shared ideas, "fictions", like the idea that more is better, or the concept of money, which drive both situations. Harari argues that the ability to believe in shared stories is what made us successful as a species. But sometimes these stories can be misleading.
  4. We're not necessarily happier. Just like agriculture didn't bring about the paradise we thought it would, the constant pursuit of material goods often leaves us feeling stressed and unfulfilled.

Perhaps we should be a bit more critical about what we think of as progress. Instead of just chasing after the next material thing, maybe we should focus on things that genuinely bring us joy and meaning: spending time with people we care about, pursuing hobbies, and having experiences.

Maybe we should try not to fall for the same old trap that our ancestors did.

It's about stepping back and asking ourselves if all this "progress" is actually making us any happier, or if we're just stuck in a cycle of wanting more.

Gemini AI was used in the creation of this post