Why Cities?

2017-09-19 · explainer · John · 3:59 · watch on YouTube

Topic: History & curiosities · mode: Explainer · tags: self promotion

John asks why humans moved from hunting and gathering to cities, which at first meant worse health, more disease and more work; after reviewing theories he argues settlements eventually made life better by almost any measure, above all through reading and writing, but that every way of life has trade-offs depending on what we take the meaning of life to be. Closing, he celebrates Hank's novel announcement.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Why cities? From hunter-gatherer bands to agriculture and specialization of labor

★★ John says one of the great unanswered questions of world history is why cities. (hedged) — 00:00:01
★★★ For 95% of human history basically everyone was a hunter-gatherer living in a small band of maybe a few dozen people. (hedged) — 00:00:06
★★★ Around 12,000 years ago communities started to grow with the advent of agriculture and domesticated livestock. — 00:00:13
★★ With agriculture one person could produce more than one person's food needs, so not everyone had to acquire food, allowing specialization of labor such as priests, scribes and soldiers. — 00:00:19

00:00:31 — Early settlement was irrational: worse health, more disease, more work than hunting and gathering

★★ John says how and why the shift happened is much debated by historians, partly because moving from hunting and gathering to agriculture seems completely irrational. (hedged) — 00:00:31
★★★ Hunter-gatherers seem to have been healthier than early agriculturalists: remains and sites show famine and starvation were much more common among early settlement dwellers. (hedged) — 00:00:41
★★ Hunter-gatherers were less likely to die in disease pandemics, since cities packed people together and livestock let diseases cross the species barrier. — 00:00:52
★★★ Early agriculture probably meant more work: studies of 20th-century hunter-gatherers show under 20 hours a week acquiring food and under 20 on domestic labor. (hedged) — 00:01:05
★★ Americans work on average 40 hours a week and spend another 36 hours a week on domestic labor. — 00:01:29 · United States

00:01:34 — Theories of why cities arose: state power, protection, excitement, concentration of power

★★ One theory: the chicken of state power came first, as any surplus was taxed by the state and the power structure became inescapable. — 00:01:38
★★ Another theory: the egg came first, as people chose to use the surplus to create a state that could protect them from outside attack. — 00:01:49
★★ Some theorize that, then as now, cities were simply more exciting places to live, with more connections to make. — 00:01:55
★★ Others argue hunter-gatherer equality was unattractive to those who wanted power, and the drive to concentrate power drove the growth of cities. — 00:02:01
★★★ Whatever happened, John says cities seem not to have been in the short- or even medium-term interest of those who lived in them. (hedged) — 00:02:09

00:02:15 — Not a mistake: don't romanticize the past; cities eventually brought better lives, above all reading and writing

★★ Many call agriculture a mistake; John grants that agriculture and the human-centric planet it produced have been very bad for biodiversity on Earth. — 00:02:15
★★★ John says we shouldn't romanticize pre-agricultural communities, where infanticide was usually common and violent death far more frequent than now. — 00:02:27
★★★ Though initially disastrous for their inhabitants, settlements eventually led to better lives by almost any measure: we are less likely than ever to die of infectious disease, malnutrition or violence. — 00:02:36 · progress
★★ We work more than hunter-gatherers but less than at any point in the last 150 years. — 00:02:48
★★ Absolute poverty is declining dramatically. — 00:02:55 · extreme poverty
★★ Median US household income is at its highest point ever. — 00:02:55 · United States
★★★ John argues the greatest benefit of cities is reading and writing, which sped the accumulation of knowledge and science and could only be invented in big, specialized communities. — 00:03:01

00:03:14 — Trade-offs depend on the ground of meaning in life; John's gratitude for telescopes, vaccines, YouTube and books

★★★ Our ancestors' choices and ours involve trade-offs; to live intentionally you must bear in mind what you believe is the ground of meaning in life. (hedged) — 00:03:14 · meaning of life
★★ If life's point is preserving biodiversity, hunting and gathering is the way; if it is understanding the universe, specialization of labor is a necessity. — 00:03:24
★★★ While much has been lost, John is grateful to live in a world with telescopes, vaccines, YouTube and books. — 00:03:35 · vaccine, YouTube

00:03:42 — Late update: Hank is publishing a novel next year, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing; sign-off

★★★ John is thrilled that Hank is publishing a book next year (2018), An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, with a New York Times article linked below. — 00:03:42 · Hank Green, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, The New York Times
★★ John says he is continually awed by Hank's ability to do so many things so well. — 00:03:49 · Hank Green

In the description and comments

★ The description says that before Hank's novel the brothers are going on tour for John's new novel, Turtles All the Way Down. — video description · Turtles All the Way Down
★★ John cites a study showing hunter-gatherers had less famine than agriculturalists, drawing on archaeology and analysis of human remains indicating they lived on average longer and healthier lives. — video description
★★ John says the article "The Case against Civilization" inspired the video and is the source of the statistics on how much hunter-gatherers work at food acquisition and domestic labor. — video description
★★ John says the book discussed in that article, Against the Grain, is an interesting read that sets out its own and others' cases for why cities developed, though he disagrees with a lot in it. — video description
★★ John says he leaned on Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens for some of the theories about why cities developed. — video description
★★ John calls Our World in Data an amazing resource for long-term trends in human history and the source of his graphs on falling absolute poverty and declining hours worked. — video description · extreme poverty
★★ John adds that median US household income really is higher than ever, even after adjusting for inflation. — video description · United States

Threads in this video

restate · Is nostalgia trustworthy: were earlier times, or earlier generations, really better? — John says we shouldn't romanticize pre-agricultural communities, where infanticide was usually common and violent death far more frequent than now. (00:02:27)
restate · Is human life getting better; is now the best time to be alive? — Though initially disastrous for their inhabitants, settlements eventually led to better lives by almost any measure: we are less likely than ever to die of infectious disease, malnutrition or violence. (00:02:36)
announced · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing: announcement and publication of Hank's first novel (2017) — John is thrilled that Hank is publishing a book next year (2018), An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, with a New York Times article linked below. (00:03:42)
restate · Are human interests and nature in conflict, or are humans part of nature? — Many call agriculture a mistake; John grants that agriculture and the human-centric planet it produced have been very bad for biodiversity on Earth. (00:02:15)
restate · Can extreme poverty be ended, or are poor countries stuck? — Absolute poverty is declining dramatically. (00:02:55)
update · Hank writes An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, his first novel (2014) — John is thrilled that Hank is publishing a book next year (2018), An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, with a New York Times article linked below. (00:03:42)

Where the stories that moved here went next

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing: announcement and publication of Hank's first novel (2017) — completed; last: looked back, 2025-12-09
Hank writes An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, his first novel (2014) — told 5×, last update 2024; last: retold, 2024-08-07

Mentioned

Central: City · Hunter-gatherer · Neolithic Revolution

Also: Works: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

Organizations: The New York Times · YouTube

Terms: doobly-doo

Concepts: Biodiversity · Book · Division of labour · extreme poverty · Famine · Infanticide · infectious disease · literacy · malnutrition · meaning of life · progress · State (polity) · Telescope · vaccine · violence · Zoonosis

Places: United States

Only in the description or credits: Against the Grain · Our World in Data · Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind · The Case against Civilization · Turtles All the Way Down · Yuval Noah Harari

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