WEBVTT - Human Domestication, Ft. Saint Andrew 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:13.480 That's a horrible way to begin. It could happen here. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:17.760 That's how we start a podcast. And Robert Evans podcast, 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:22.000 Things falling apart, put them back together, all that good stuff. 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:27.200 Co hosts here today Garrison Davis, our our our buddy Chris, 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:34.560 and of course the great Saint Andrew, Andrew Blessing take 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.960 it away, Good morning, and in case I don't see you, 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.560 good afternoon, good evening, and good night. Speaking of the 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:46.040 Truman shoe, solid reference, well done, Thank you. I wanted 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:49.280 to spend today's episode discussing a concept that has been 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:51.920 brought up in the work of James C. Scott and 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:58.720 Christopher Ryan, the idea of human domestication. And before people 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.160 start clicking off, I'm not going to go all and 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:04.840 pri him or anything, you know, It's just I think 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:07.440 it's an interesting thing to think about. I think that 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:13.200 Scott explores it in a very interesting way in chapter 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:18.400 two of Against the Green, and so relating as I 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:20.280 guess to the Truman Show, because I mean, why did 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:24.480 I bring it up? Truman lives in a suburban picket 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:28.280 fence American dream dome of a world that's meant to 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.920 keep him, you know, contained and content and ignorant about 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:35.840 the fact that he's on a TV show. Truman has 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.759 trapped in this wound that he kind of conformed too, 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:43.560 but he can't escape, at least initially, and so you 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:45.240 could tell that you know, there's something wrong, and he 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:47.840 probably felt that way for a long time. It's only 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:50.000 over the course of the movie that he develops a 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:54.640 sufficient awareness of his condition to leave home and become 0:01:54.720 --> 0:02:01.080 a true man, Thank you very much. Holy alright, alright, 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:11.440 good episode, guys. Um and humans like Truman have been 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:17.720 stewards and cultivators of the natural environment for a long time, right, 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:20.320 one of the only creatures who do that. By the way, 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.040 I see a lot of people who see who kind 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:24.359 of like adopt this assumption that he wants just like 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:29.240 imposing our will on the environment that is otherwise unscathed 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.359 by our presence and all that. And I mean, yeah, 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.760 we do a lot of very very terrible stuff the environment, 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:40.000 but a lot of our actions are also beneficial. And 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:44.519 we have the only creatures to shape and sometimes harm 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:49.079 and sometimes benefit the natural environment. I mean beavers, elephants, 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:53.519 prairie dogs, bees, and tom not to mention the networks 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.880 of trees and other plants that all manipulate the environments 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:03.040 to soothe them and there comfort and their survival. You know, 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:05.639 but there's no nature as we know it as we 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:10.560 see it um that sort of untouched wild idea without 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.639 the activities of humans. You know, humans have been planting 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:18.440 seeds and tubers, shaping the evolution of many plants species, 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:30.480 burning and desirable flora, weeding out, competition, pruning, thinning, trimming, transplanting, mulching, relocating, bark, ringing, compassing, watering, 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:34.200 and futilizing. And for animals, you know, we have hunted 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.040 even selectively, you know, spared females or reproductive age, or 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:42.400 hunted based on life cycles, or fish selectively managed streams 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:46.760 to promote spawning and shellfish beds, you know, transplanted the 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.200 eggs and young of birds and fish, and even raised 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.240 juveniles in some cases. That's kind of how we ended 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:55.200 up domest skating a lot of animals. And I'm gonna 0:03:55.240 --> 0:04:00.480 get into that. So through fire, through plow, through hunting, 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:05.120 through a whole array of different activities, humans have domesticated 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:10.920 whole environments. You know, well before you know the full 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.200 the full society is based on you know, fully domesticated 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:18.000 wheat and barley, and goats and sheep. The spectrum of 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:23.120 subsistence moods that we have utilized, whether we're hunting, foraging, pastoralism, 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:27.240 or farming, have existed and complemented each other, you know, 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.640 sort of harmony. Millennia and I mean those of you 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.240 who have read don't have everything. You kind of see 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:37.800 that picture coming into shape as it progressed through the book. 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.919 But of course James C. Scott also discussed it years 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:46.520 before in Against the Green so as he says, enter 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:52.280 the Domas, just as we transformed our landscapes, we transformed ourselves. 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:57.680 The Domas was a unique and unprecedented concentration of tilled fields, 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:02.520 seed and green stores, people and domesticated animals and hangers 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:06.640 on like mice and rats and covids, all co evolving 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.240 with consequences no one could have possibly foreseen. You know, 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.359 dogs and pigs and cats, all of them. Their entire 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:17.800 evolution was shaped by their relation to this dom and 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:24.360 humans are not the exception. Of course, there's some animals 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:27.480 that easier to domesticate than others, which is why you 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:32.960 don't see people commonly riding or hooding zebras and gazelle 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.119 um they will make the best cattle or ride um 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.440 and probably knock your brains out if you tried. So 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.240 it's probably best to stick to the ones that we 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:50.200 have sort of who evolved with, like you know, llamas 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:54.320 and goats and sheep and pigs and over generations, you 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:59.000 see the domesticated creatures, unlike their wild counterparts, developer level 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:03.640 of submissiveness and a decreased awareness of their surroundings. Right, 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:08.919 So that emotional dampening is basically a condition of life 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:12.640 because when you're in that domas you know, yeah on 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:18.400 the human supervision, that instant reaction to predator and you know, 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.480 pray they no longer the most powerful pressures. Because you're 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:26.359 in this sort of cultivated environment, your physical protection and 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.840 nutrition is more secure than it would be in a 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:34.520 more wild environment. So the mestigated animal is less allude 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:37.800 to its surroundings, less away of its surroundings than its 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:41.239 cousins in the wild. UM. And we could see as well, 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.919 you know, with human sidenters, there's also been a reduction 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:52.040 mobility UM and that of course had consequences for health. 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:55.800 To be very honest with you, I was actually kind 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.919 of consumed about covering this and I was trying to 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.520 figure out how to cover this um in a way 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:08.840 that doesn't make me look like I'm trying to like 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:15.520 retire into the deeps of Amazonia or something. Yeah, I 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.160 just I find it interesting to think about her environments 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.960 shape us. Yeah, absolutely, I mean you can think about 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:26.000 these things without becoming a hermit and hiding in the woods. 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:31.320 As as as attractive as an idea as that, well, 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.800 yeah for sure, for sure. I mean like I have 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:37.360 this like kind of canon in my head, you know, 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:40.640 like the whole idea of multi verses. Yeah. I figured 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.920 somewhere in the multiverses a version of myself we have 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.880 retired into the forest and gone through this whole kind 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:50.480 of like anime training arc and emerged as this like 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:55.520 one punchman beast of a human. I would I would. 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:57.760 I would also like to be that tipeline. I think 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:00.200 that would be very interesting, like a train so either 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.840 all my hair falls out, able to snap trees with 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:09.800 just a breath. It is like, yeah, the the the 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:15.880 the quintessential wildman. That's yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:21.360 also multiverse version of me where I'm president or something. 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.640 It would be pretty interesting to see, Like I should 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.600 be kind of cool. I just had an idea of 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:36.080 like this, um, this team of versions of oneself that 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:40.320 team up to like fight the evil versions of themselves 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.640 across the multiverse. It's kind of like kind of the Conqueror, 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:47.080 except I think in most versions of the multiverse, he 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.880 is evil. Yes, I have, I've definitely, I've definitely read 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.480 that comic before of the good Ones fighting the bad Ones. 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.840 I mean, the Injustice comics and video games are pretty 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:01.280 pretty pretty big, pretty big staples of that genre. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:06.439 of course an Injustice it's different characters, Whereas it will 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:08.480 be interesting to see like a cast that's all just 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:12.600 one person, just like the same dude, the exact same person, 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:15.760 but they all grew up in such different environments. Even 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.360 though they share the exact same DNA, they're like different people. 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.280 It would be an interesting commentary on society because we 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:24.920 do live in one. After all, we do live in 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:31.360 a society for better for worse. Yeah, But anyway, like 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:36.800 I'm saying, you know, environments shape us. We shape environments, 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:40.079 and to me, we need to start shaping our environments again, 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:44.280 so we could either shape up or chip out of 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.080 existence as a species, right, Um, you know, because the 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:56.160 way the trajectory were on is not sustainable. Um. So 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:01.520 we can see, of course, in this transition to domas um, 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:05.520 the sedentary, green growing sort of community that you know, 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:10.679 in archaeological studies of the bones of the inhabitants, you 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:15.080 could see like repetitive stress injuries shaping their bodies, you know, 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:20.280 like the skeletal signatures of like grinding grain and you know, 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:27.360 like ah, cutting and sewing and kneeling and bending and 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:33.680 moving in you know, very repetitive ways, you know. And 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:35.920 of course with these concentrations of people, we also see 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:40.000 like epidemics and stuff and parasites starting to fester not 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:42.520 just within humans or just not just within species, but 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:48.400 also like cross species pathogens and stuff. Yeah, you know. 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:52.160 And so as we all on this kind of same arc, 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.840 sharing this micro environment, sharing our gyms and parasites, you 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.880 end ups getting more and more brutal versions of like 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:04.760 wild diseases, you know, because they basically go through the 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:09.200 the iron quantlet of you know, like that the disease 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:12.600 thunder doom, We're only one could come out as Victoria's 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.560 and so they battled out and became these more refined 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.160 and more severe forms, which is why you see in 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:23.800 Europe where they had this high population densities, they the 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.680 diseases that developed there when they were introduced to the 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.319 coote and quote New World. You know, the really ravaged 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:33.080 population that didn't really live on that level of density. 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:35.440 Not to say they didn't have cities, because they did. 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:40.280 The had cities and villages and collaborations and such a 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:46.840 people spanning across like large areas, but it wasn't organized 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:51.080 in quite the same way. It wasn't generalizing quite fairly. 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:58.560 But you know, it's two whole continents. UM. We also 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:04.240 see that like ye, nutritional stress starts to develop in 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:11.320 the bones and teeth of um more quote domiciled humans. UM. 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:15.600 You see like I and deficiency anemia in people whose 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:21.120 diets were consisting increasingly of grains and you know, as 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:23.600 I said told, you know, their diets became narrower, you know, 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:31.000 less variety UM in both plants and proteins. And so 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:36.360 that ended up leading to you know, like declining tooth 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:42.520 size and reduction in statue and skeletal robustness. And of 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:47.960 course this change and like our physiology and dimorphism as 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:50.079 a history such as like a lot fool of the 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:55.160 pact than just in ulithic, but sidentis um and crowding 0:12:56.320 --> 0:13:01.760 definitely left and immediate and legible mark on the archaeological record. 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.160 I do find it interesting. Um. I read this book 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:12.600 I think last year called Botany of Desire, and in 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:18.440 it the guy um what's his name? And in it 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.720 Michael Pollan talks about all the plans we thought we 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:26.480 were domestigating. Domesticated us too, you know, because if you 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.120 think about it, you know, you up in the garden 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.480 on your hands and knees, day after day, sun and rain, 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:39.480 reading and fertilizing and untangling, protecting and reshaping an environment 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:44.240 just to suit you little tomato plants. He'll potato plant, 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.800 and I mean the plant kind of hasn't made you know, Um, 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:51.600 they don't have to worry about the sort of things 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.520 they would usually have to worry about outside of the domas. 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:57.719 You know, you were there to make sure that their 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.000 competitors are weeded out. You were there to make sure 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.400 they get all the nutrients they need. You're there to 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.520 make sure that do insects and stuff come and like 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:09.000 ravage them, and you even help to fuutilize them as well. 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:15.880 And so you know, it's kind of like I want 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:22.760 to say, uh, mutual relationship because as you know, these 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:27.280 domesticated plants have continued long this path of domestication. A 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:29.520 lot of them can no longer thrive without our help. 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:35.400 And in the same way, you know, we can't just 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:38.680 not go on without them. You know, we also are 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.840 dependent on like a handful of domesticated cultivars. Like we 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:44.840 can't just certainly switch and just be like, oh, we're 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:48.720 not gonna grow wheat and corn and potatoes anymore. But 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.760 I mean that's been the foundation of all diets for 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:55.400 too long. Now. That's what you know, most of our 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:59.000 food production back you don't have percentages, I won't say most, 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:02.240 or just say a lot of our food production is 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:09.040 like centered around that, and so um, you know, we 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:13.760 can't just jump out to that, especially with the population increases, 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.480 so you just have grown increasingly reliant on a few 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:21.680 like grains and cereals, um and starches. So yeah, we 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.440 do we need them more than they need said a 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:29.040 lot of senses. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly, because I mean 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:30.880 a lot of them they do still have like wild 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.280 counterparts that can always you know, take over. It's just 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:40.080 a wild counterparts generally less appetizing than the ones you've 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:42.000 gotten used to. I'm sure a lot of people have 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:47.200 seen that picture of the different types of bananas out there, um, 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.680 or you know, the different types of cooling out there. Um. 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.000 Of course, a lot of corn species that are edible 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:58.520 because you know they were cultivated in massive America. UM. 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.000 I would like to try them, be because the corn 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.200 that I've grown up with gotten used too much of 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:10.160 what it's called. But I don't like it. Um. I 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:13.640 find the texture and taste of it to be kind 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:21.000 of lack of a vet would revolting. So I mean, like, 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:23.360 and I've been this way for like a long long time, right, 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:28.400 Like I growing up used to be refusing to eat 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:31.160 like an entire plate of food because it had corn 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:33.880 in it. I didn't like one. And if people used 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:35.800 to point out the irony and the fact that I 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.520 would readily eat like corn pie, what would eat popcorn? 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.400 What would eat like corn bread? Yeah? But to me, 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:48.360 it's it's not the same, you know, like corn on 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.640 the cob and and stuff is it's not the same. 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:54.880 And so like I've tried some some different types of corn, 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.000 Like I've tried it was kind of like soft baby 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.920 corns that they're get in like soup songs. Oh yeah, 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:06.520 and those delicious you know, I wouldn't such your sights 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.840 too much on those various corn varieties because one of 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:11.760 the oldest ways of eating corn before we had really 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:14.840 nice soft kernels. One of one of the oldest ways 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:16.960 is we would we would take we would take the 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:22.199 heart the hard corn kernels, um pop them inside a 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:25.400 inside like a frying pan to make this tart expand 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:27.840 then crush that up and mix it with like a 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:32.159 liquid to have a very disgusting, starchy gruel. And that 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:34.280 was the way that we ate corn for a long time. 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:36.800 And eventually that was eventually we were able to to 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.080 like um like tortise and stuff. But for a long 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:44.879 time it was just kind of corn rule. Yeah, this 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.800 was this was a problem. This was a major problem 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:52.480 during the Irish potato famine because in short, the potato 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.479 crops failed um and so the British government imported a 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:58.840 bunch of what they called Indian corn at the time, 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:01.560 which was corn grown in the Ad States um. And 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:04.040 this was even though Irish people were growing plenty of 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.359 corn to feed themselves, but that corn was being exported um, 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:09.720 and the Indian corn was seen that it was harder, 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:11.919 so it was seen as of lower quality. So they 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:14.600 had to develop a bunch of methods of grinding it down, 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:18.160 and eventually the government was just like, hey, just soak 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.600 it for like several days and then boil it in 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.560 water for hours and add some milk or some grease 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.080 if you have it. And some of the problems that 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.880 costes that, like the Irish people were starving to death, 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:34.600 and because when you're starving to death, your your stomach 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:36.600 is not as hardy as it is when you're not 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:40.120 starving to death, and so the corn, even after being boiled, 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.439 would cut their stomachs and there is some feel lining 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.720 and cause like in some cases people would like die. Um. 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:52.400 So yeah, corn, see I could I could add that's 0:18:52.440 --> 0:19:08.920 my reasons to despise corn, like anti Irish violins. I'm 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.879 gonna I will briefly ranch about corn subsidies. People think 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:17.320 I've actually done that on the show. Yet there's there's 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:19.760 there's there's a there's a thing about that'll be high 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:26.440 traffic domess. That's like like in terms of sort of domestication, 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:29.400 in terms of human domestication, you know, and in terms 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:33.320 of the the extent to which we're being shaped, you 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.560 have to be I think, very careful to make sure 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:41.280 that you're attributing agency to the thing that actually has agency, 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:45.160 because there's there's a tendency to sort of attribute stuff too, 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:46.919 you know, Okay, well, this is just a way the 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:48.760 technical process works. And because this is the way the 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:50.879 technical process works, here are the social structure is that 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.199 inevitably results out of it. And that's true to some extent. 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:57.280 But you know, for example, like if if we're talking 0:19:57.280 --> 0:19:59.720 about like whose domestic and whom we look at corners like, well, yeah, 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:01.800 because we growing and grow an enormous amount of corn. 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.080 But it's not because of sort of like like that 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.240 that's the reason we have so much corn is entirely political. 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.920 It's entirely about the fact that, like there's a corn 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:13.800 lobby in the US that is enormously powerful. And because 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:15.159 of the way the Senate works and because of the 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:19.000 way sort of like the primaries work, you have to 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:22.920 be pro corn. And this means that the American corn 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:25.919 industry has billions and billions of dollars and subsidies that 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:28.399 like this is this is like the only thing every 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.800 economist across the entire political spectrum agrees on like you 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.160 will you will get like the Heritage Foundation agreeing with 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:38.800 like Marxists who are agreeing with like like that the 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.160 standard LiPo comes. Everyone agrees this is awful to free 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:43.120 trade people agree with this, the anti free trade people 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.040 agree with this, and it just sticks there because of 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:47.919 you know, because because because of a very sort of 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:53.640 a very contingent set of political processes. And I think 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:55.479 that that's something that's important to keep in mind when 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:59.000 you're thinking about stuff like domestication, which is that like, yes, 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:01.680 on the one hand, it is true that you are 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:03.960 being shaped by the production process, but it's also true 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:06.360 like for example, you know, if you go back to 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:08.760 the women in the story who you know, you can 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:10.720 see in in their bones right that they've been sort 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:14.320 of like bending over like husking crops and stuff. Wells 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:16.640 like well, that that it's true to some exat that's 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:18.879 that's because of the production process. But the production process 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:20.959 works like that because of social reasons, like okay, like 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:24.240 why is it women doing this work? Right? Like there's 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:29.120 there's always simultaneously sort of human constructive social systems operating 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:31.800 at the same time as you have these mechanical systems, 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:35.000 and people love to attribute all of it to the 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:40.000 mechanical systems in a way that loses you know it 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:44.640 it naturalizes things that are bad and could actually be changed, 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:49.040 and loses the capacity for sort of well yeah, I 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:52.119 mean our sort of culpability and both the fact that 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:53.600 it could be different than the fact that we do 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:57.840 it this way. Yeah, I mean, yeah, but it's still 0:21:57.880 --> 0:21:59.919 I think it's still important to like think about like 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.800 how reliant we still are on it as a resource 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.919 in terms of like maze and like you know, corn 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.400 syrup and like getting like glucose get like, like it's 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:12.960 so we rely on it for so many facets beyond 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:16.880 just eating like a corn on the cob, and like, yeah, 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:18.480 it's kind of it's like it's like a it's like 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:20.680 a it's like a figure right infinity loop here that 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:22.720 we've kind of we've we've kind of like tied ourselves 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.480 into a knot. Um. Yeah, but I'm saying like, like like 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:26.760 a lot of this stuff also has to do with 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:28.520 the fact, like you know, part of the reason that 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:30.760 there's we use corn syrup is they were like taxes 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:32.560 on sugar and you could get you can get around 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:34.600 and then has all there's all these like yeah, there's 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:37.000 all these sort of feedback cycles of like we become 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:38.879 dependent on something because of a social process, but now 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:41.760 we're dependent on the physical process. And it's yeah, I mean, 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:43.320 so you can you can like tie this into the 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:47.320 idea of like, once you switched over to large scale agriculture, 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:51.680 we need to kind of have somebody that that governs 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:54.199 how it works, because now we're no longer reliant on 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:58.800 smaller more like individualized farms or forest farming. We're instead 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:02.320 reliant on a bigger you know, like a bigger stake 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:04.080 in the land. So if that fails, we're all more 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:07.840 in trouble. Now, agriculture does not equal sieve. That's not 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:12.560 that's not an actually sound um and the like like anthropology, 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:14.720 Like if if you look at the anthropology, that's actually 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:16.840 not a superstand argument. I think you can you can 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:20.000 read the the not of everything that makes they make 0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:22.680 that point pretty clear. But still when you do have 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:26.400 when you do have a large population relying on very 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:30.600 few like um, very large crop like like of only 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:33.600 a small diversity of large crops, and there's a lot, 0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:35.280 there's a lot, there's a lot more stakes on it, 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:38.200 So you're gonna you know, there's gonna be processes that 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:41.840 are going to have like authority, authoritative, hierarchical elements to 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:46.080 help organize those crops so that they don't get you know, famines, 0:23:46.760 --> 0:23:49.040 which of course if you look at Maos China you 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:52.280 can see that worked out very well. Yeah, and I 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:54.919 should note for the record, when we're talking about the 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:57.439 Irish potato fam and that a lot of people didn't 0:23:57.480 --> 0:24:00.840 die because the government imported corn, which they stopped doing 0:24:00.880 --> 0:24:03.679 after the first year of the famine because of TRAVALI. Anyway, 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:05.679 what we're doing, we'll be doing an episode on the 0:24:05.680 --> 0:24:08.119 potato famine. I didn't want to completely shift on the 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:11.440 corn that was imported by the government because it was critical. 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:16.520 It's just also eating corn doesn't historically, as as was 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:19.280 brought up earlier, eating corn historically does not mean what 0:24:19.320 --> 0:24:22.679 you you think about now. Yeah, well, and and you 0:24:22.680 --> 0:24:25.119 know what, we will also do things on on the 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:27.280 Mao famines. And part of that also was that the 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:31.720 centralization of agriculture was a like epocle disaster in a 0:24:31.760 --> 0:24:37.879 lot of ways that took like decades to recover from, 0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:44.480 which yeah, is a is a fun time. Yes, And 0:24:45.040 --> 0:24:48.640 when Chris says a fun time here, he is not 0:24:48.720 --> 0:24:51.680 the end the tru but there was new audias are wondering, 0:24:54.880 --> 0:24:58.359 thank you, thank you and Drew for that clarification. I 0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:01.159 was I was slightly I was slightly used. Yes he is. 0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:04.040 He is slash J. He is not slash SR. Yeah. 0:25:04.040 --> 0:25:07.080 I mean it occurs to me that I'm not sure 0:25:07.119 --> 0:25:08.760 I've ever gone back into the record to see if 0:25:08.800 --> 0:25:10.560 anyone in my family died from the famines. I know 0:25:10.600 --> 0:25:12.639 people died later, I don't know if people died specifically 0:25:12.640 --> 0:25:17.400 from that. Which is a good time again, but Chris 0:25:17.520 --> 0:25:21.439 has a good time. What they actually made is not 0:25:21.560 --> 0:25:27.920 a good time. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, back to against the grain, 0:25:28.880 --> 0:25:32.480 back to against the green. So as we're talking about, 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:35.800 you know, this reliance on this one steep will whether 0:25:35.840 --> 0:25:39.920 it be corn or green or any cereal, really it 0:25:40.000 --> 0:25:42.600 kind of brings to mind um. And also we're going 0:25:42.680 --> 0:25:47.159