Column # 396       March 31, 2023Thatched Hut

There was a time when humans rarely settled in one location. They lived temporarily in caves, thatched huts, or tents. People moved around depending on two things: When the game in their area was hunted out or to follow animal migrations. Their food was mostly meat.

For permanent towns and/or cities to exist, plentiful food was a requirement. And, of course, in the majority of cases, surplus food didn’t come about until after man mastered the art of growing crops, the domestication of livestock, and the storing of surpluses. This led to denser populations and allowed people to specialize in skills other than those associated with basic survival.

As populations grew so did the number of specialties. But before we get into that, when looking back at the nomadic lifestyle we see that the number of skills and knowledgeable specialists remained relatively constant from generation after generation because the survival needs only required a very narrow focus and very gradual innovation.1 2

The shelters hunter-gatherers used were makeshift and, because they were portable or easily built, quite often simply abandoned when the need to move was required. Clothing was simple, being mostly made from hides acquired from the animals people ate. And since food and clothing came from animals, their abundance dictated where people lived.3

Early man acted pretty much in concert with his peers and knowledge advanced slowly. That was when it was easy for a leader (dictator) to “know it all” and consequently make all or most of the tribe’s decisions.

But those days ended with the invention of agriculture approximately 11,000 years ago. That’s when towns and cities started forming with populations numbered in the thousands and tens of thousands. Shelters became more sophisticated. The harvesting, preparation, and storage of food and drink became more sophisticated. Even clothing became more complicated as plant material was incorporated into its manufacture. But knowledge about food, clothing, and shelter was only the beginning of the required skills.

Towns, and later big cities, required many more skills such as transportation, sanitation, mining, lumber, and defensive barriers which were very expensive to develop, maintain, and operate. Commerce developed as people specialized in singular tasks and traded amongst themselves for their needs. As towns grew into cities, wealth grew to support entertainment and the arts. Life was no longer simple and no one man could possibly “know it all.”4

As time went by cities became very rich with many of them becoming capitols of nations. This required ever more sophisticated tradesmen, larger armies, highway systems, ships, and long-distance communications.

Because of the complexity that cities required, leaders who tried rule with an iron hand only stifled commerce, development, and learning. Cities and whole countries that were led by benevolent dictators always did better. Unfortunately, some leaders didn’t know the difference since many thought they were gods. But the people always knew better. The more dictatorial a leader was the more the people lost their ability to innovate and adjust to changing times.

Today, the idea of total dictatorships is absolute insanity. The only ones surviving are countries such as Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela where all the citizens are reduced to the same level of abject poverty unless they are fortunate enough to closely serve the master. The only dictatorships where people have thrived are those that have relatively free markets where people can function independently in their professions such as in Russia and China.

The term “American Dream” has nothing to do with wealth. It’s all about America’s form of government where citizen rights are ordained by God not man. When the USA was originally formed, foreign scholars derisively called its new experimental form of democracy “The American Dream.” Today, the dream of freedom is turning into a nightmare. Many people, especially the elites and those that do their bidding such as university scholars, bureaucrats, MSM, the indoctrinated (woke) youth, along with members of the ignorant mob think that one man rule would solve all of the nation’s problems past and present.

This decay into serfdom is being championed by the elitists behind The Great Reset. They are so ignorant that they actually believe, that as a body of elitists, they can run the world—because they are smarter than the accumulated knowledge of eight billion people!

Even with armies of bureaucrats to help manage all aspects of survival, they will fail. Bureaucrats are rarely involved in innovation, instead they think mostly about regulation. Regulation not only discourages innovation but totally eliminates the flexibility required to function in different environments. It’s like driving a car with a steering wheel that won’t turn.

That’s why, if you want equality where everyone is on the bottom rung together, just invite in one-man rule, an army of bureaucrats, and paper money. This is what we’re morphing into here in the United States. If the trend continues it won’t be pretty, so let’s hope it doesn’t happen. But it will require more than hope to restore our Founding Fathers’ dreams of freedom. Hope must be bolstered by action.

What side are you on?

To your health.

Ted Slanker

Ted Slanker has been reporting on the fundamentals of nutritional research in publications, television and radio appearances, and at conferences since 1999. He condenses complex studies into the basics required for health and well-being. His eBook, The Real Diet of Man, is available online.

For additional reading:

1. Nomadism from Britannica

2. Cave Dweller from Wikipedia

3. Hunter-Gatherer from Britannica

4. Where Are the Largest Cities Throughout History? by Ollie Bye and Pallavi Rao from Visual Capitalist