Jared Diamond presents several arguments that agriculture was a mistake for humanity. One argument is that the life of hunter-gatherers is far more nutritious than that of sedentary people. Diamond argues that in comparison to sedentary peoples, hunter-gatherers are well fed, work less for their food, and can’t starve from a mass famine like the Irish. But Diamond’s argument is flawed because it fails to account for agricultural advances of the last two centuries that skyrocketed the production of food. For example, Vileisis writes “When tomatoes grown for fresh consumption flooded markets and prices dropped, canneries snapped up the ripe surplus…manufacturers could then sell their imperishable products… year-round” (Pg 218). The over-production
Jonathan Kozol revealed the early period’s situation of education in American schools in his article Savage Inequalities. It seems like during that period, the inequality existed everywhere and no one had the ability to change it; however, Kozol tried his best to turn around this situation and keep track of all he saw. In the article, he used rhetorical strategies effectively to describe what he saw in that situation, such as pathos, logos and ethos.
“The Onion’s” mock press release on the MagnaSoles satirical article effectively attacks the rhetorical devices, ethos and logos, used by companies to demonstrate how far advertisers will go to convince people to buy their products. It does this by using manipulative, “scientific-sounding" terminology, comparisons, fabrication, and hyperboles.
Jared Diamond makes a great and compelling argument about how inequality across the entire globe originated. The main components that were agreeing with this argument were guns germs and steel. Guns meaning the advancement in weaponry, military warfare and military sophistication. Germs meaning the harmful disease and other foul illness that wiped out humans throughout History. Then the third and final point steel, which was about the advancement in societies and the complex sophistication with their technology, which lead to building great architecture and devices that were completely impactful.
In the book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer wrote about Christopher McCandless, a nature lover in search for independence, in a mysterious and hopeful experience. Even though Krakauer tells us McCandless was going to die from the beginning, he still gave him a chance for survival. As a reader I wanted McCandless to survive. In Into the Wild, Krakauer gave McCandless a unique perspective. He was a smart and unique person that wanted to be completely free from society. Krakauer included comments from people that said McCandless was crazy, and his death was his own mistake. However, Krakauer is able to make him seem like a brave person. The connections between other hikers and himself helped in the explanation of McCandless’s rational actions. Krakauer is able to make McCandless look like a normal person, but unique from this generation. In order for Krakauer to make Christopher McCandless not look like a crazy person, but a special person, I will analyze the persuading style that Krakauer used in Into the Wild that made us believe McCandless was a regular young adult.
Jared Diamond Argues that the worst mistake in Human History is the invention and widespread introduction of agriculture, because it has created a plethora of social, economic, and health problems for the word. One example of this is when the article states, “Hunter-Gatherers enjoyed a varied diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition.” This illustrates that the author's main argument is that agriculture was the worst mistake in human history because it shows how agriculture has negatively impacted health of both early farmers and people today by creating mass produced bulk crops that are low in nutrition. Furthermore, another example
The video “Nick Hanauer: Beware, fellow Plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming” is a powerful speech made by Nick Hanauer to address the growth of inequality among social classes. He also states how to prevent the effects that would come to the plutocrats’ class group if the social inequality continues this fast paced growth.
Pollan’s article provides a solid base to the conversation, defining what to do in order to eat healthy. Holding this concept of eating healthy, Joe Pinsker in “Why So Many Rich Kids Come to Enjoy the Taste of Healthier Foods” enters into the conversation and questions the connection of difference in families’ income and how healthy children eat (129-132). He argues that how much families earn largely affect how healthy children eat — income is one of the most important factors preventing people from eating healthy (129-132). In his article, Pinsker utilizes a study done by Caitlin Daniel to illustrate that level of income does affect children’s diet (130). In Daniel’s research, among 75 Boston-area parents, those rich families value children’s healthy diet more than food wasted when children refused to accept those healthier but
The movie trailer “Rio 2”, shows a great deal of pathos, ethos, and logos. These rhetorical appeals are hidden throughout the movie trailer; however, they can be recognized if paying attention to the details and montage of the video. I am attracted to this type of movies due to the positive life messages and the innocent, but funny personifications from the characters; therefore, the following rhetorical analysis will give a brief explanation of the scenes, point out the characteristics of persuasive appeals and how people can be easily persuaded by using this technique, and my own interpretation of the message presented in the trailer.
In an article from his website, Diamond breaks his main points down into a simplistic manner. He writes, “The conclusion of social scientists is that all of these developments required sedentary populous societies producing storable food surpluses capable of feeding not only the food producers themselves, but also capable of feeding full-time political leaders, merchants, scribes, and technology specialists” (Citation). This speaks volumes in showing how crucial food production was in making a population evolve from simply surviving, to thriving. If the main concern of those in a hunter-gatherer society is having enough food to survive the day, they don’t have the time to worry about developing
64-66), author Jared Diamond claims that agriculture as opposed to popular belief, didn’t help civilization bloom, but instead proved detrimental to human lives ever since its introduction. He states that the progressives believe agriculture was adopted due to its efficiency and how it complimented our race. He contradicts this view with multiple studies and expert sources. According to his research, modern day humans are much worse off than their hunter gatherer counterparts due to a variety of lifestyle changes ranging from greatly deteriorated nutritional quality to increased sexual discrimination. He gathers the support from various archaeological research conducted on various remains found in Chile, Greece, Turkey, etc. Archaeologists can further point out the date at which this switch (from Gathering to agriculture) took place. He further establishes that Hunter gatherers may have chosen to change ways with the preconceived idea that the capability to feed more people and reducing the burden on mothers (hence allowing them to bear a child every 2 years instead of 4) would in turn drastically improve quality of life. He concludes the article by emphasizing on how it created disparities between the elite and the commoners and by defending his own kind for having discovered mankind’s biggest mistake and the motive behind
In the sources provided by The Times of London, William Safire, Ayn Rand, and Herblock all showed both effective and ineffective qualities. The reason why is because some had appeals that were easy to understand what the speaker was trying to say, and do. The following statements were why the given texts and image were all effective.
Diamond states that the reason hunter-gatherer groups became agriculturists was simply because it was easier to create more food for your individual group if it was grown, this statement does have validity. Everyone would be responsible for themselves and would be expected to help out. There wouldn’t be the constant grumbling that there are so many people being lazy and living off of handouts like there are in the modern world today.
Jared Diamond, the man who wrote “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race”, believes that we should not have switched to an agriculturalist lifestyle and rather should have continued living as hunter-gatherers. He argues that the adoption of agriculture also brought inequality, diseases, starvation, and other related problems. Not many people think this way, and Diamond knows that. Some of these opposers’ “progressivist views” were brought up in the article and were shot down by Diamond’s logic and reason. But is his argument really that logical? Are hunter-gatherer societies sincerely better than agricultural civilizations?
The Letter from Birmingham Jail was written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in April of 1963. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of several civil rights activists who were arrested in Birmingham Alabama, after protesting against racial injustices in Alabama. Dr. King wrote this letter in response to a statement titled A Call for Unity, which was published on Good Friday by eight of his fellow clergymen from Alabama. Dr. King uses his letter to eloquently refute the article. In the letter dr. king uses many vivid logos, ethos, and pathos to get his point across. Dr. King writes things in his letter that if any other person even dared to write the people would consider them crazy.
It is easy to respond to Diamond 's argument that the agricultural revolution was "the worst mistake in the history of the human race" with a defensive attitude based on what diamond calls the "progressivist perspective." This perspective counters with the idea that agriculture was an essential development in the history of the human race. The "progressivist perspective" is what modern American 's have been taught and conditioned to believe in order to support and defend our current way of life; making it the default argument. The basic problem with both of these theories is they are both absolutes and adopting strictly one or the other leads to polarization, and fails to acknowledge the multiple variables that led to the institution of agriculture, but also the variables contributed to the consequences attributed to the adoption of agriculture. Both theories also superficially suggest that agriculture was a direct conscious choice independent of evolution and the changing environment. When considering the impact of agriculture on the human race, as with most things, the answer likely lies somewhere in the middle and must be considered in relation to the changing environment. There is a benefit and a cost to every choice. Choices are complex responses made to people, places, circumstances, and conditions. Considering these facts, the agricultural revolution can neither be considered completely good or completely bad, but rather both and detrimental to its development.