We should've stayed in the trees

We should've stayed in the trees

This is an interesting sequence of words written by the Guns, Germs and Steel guy. We were discussing this very topic at lunch, and my thought was that although agricultural societies may actually cause more human misery than their hunter-gatherer counterparts, agricultural societies and their associated ills are a swell idea because the ultimate big Idea is to get the heck off this planet before a chunky ball of ice hits it, or the sun swallows it, or it gets flushed down some black hole- and agricultural societies with their ballooning populations and intense competition provide the best chance we have of developing the sweet hyperspacial propulsion system and the handy robotic terra-forming technology, and the comfy jumpsuits necessary for humankind to conquer the universe...