The food surpluses produced by peasants, coupled with new transportation technology, eventually enabled more and more people to cram together first into large villages, then into towns, and finally into cities, all of them joined together by new kingdoms and commercial networks.The numerical success of the calfвЂ™s species is little consolation for the suffering the individual endures. The contented rhinoceros is no less content for being among the last of its kind. A rare wild rhinoceros on the brink of extinction is probably more satisfied than a calf who spends its short life inside a tiny box, fattened to produce juicy steaks. Their evolutionary вЂsuccessвЂ™ is meaningless. Yet from the viewpoint of the herd, rather than that of the shepherd, itвЂ™s hard to avoid the impression that for the vast majority of domesticated animals, the Agricultural Revolution was a terrible catastrophe.These two inventions filled the gaps left by our biological inheritance. Understanding human history in the millennia following the Agricultural Revolution boils down to a single question: how did humans organise themselves in mass-cooperation networks, when they lacked the biological instincts necessary to sustain such networks? The short answer is that humans created imagined orders and devised scripts.Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction. In the following millennia it transformed itself into the master of the entire planet and the terror of the ecosystem. Seventy thousand years ago, homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa.How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Harper, 2011. ' Industrial farming is one of the worst crimes in history', The Guardian, 25 Sept.Yet does that make their fate any worse than that of wild buffaloes? Is it better to be devoured by a lion than slaughtered by a man? Are crocodile teeth kinder than steel blades? True, most cows and calves sooner or later find themselves in the slaughterhouse. People provide cows and calves with food, water and shelter, they treat their diseases, and protect them from predators and natural disasters. Domesticated cattle, by contrast, enjoy care and protection from humans. Wild buffaloes spend their days searching for food, water and shelter, and are constantly threatened by lions, parasites, floods and droughts. At first sight, domesticated animals may seem much better off than their wild cousins and ancestors.1.3 Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.1.1 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

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