I closed my eyes and found the interior rooms of my head quite thoroughly deserted. - Daniel Quinn

Q. Wasn’t agriculture developed as a response to famine?
A. Agriculture is useless as a response to famine. You can no more respond to famine by planting a crop than you can respond to falling out of an airplane by knitting a parachute. But this really misses the point. To say that agriculture was developed as a response to famine is like saying that cigarette smoking was developed as a response to lung cancer. Agriculture doesn’t cure famine, it promotes famine—it creates the conditions in which famines occur. Agriculture makes it possible for more people to live in an area than that area can support—and that’s exactly where famines occur.

Of course, there is no one right way for people to live, any more than there is one right way for birds to build nests or for spiders to spin webs.

Increasing food production to feed an increased population results in yet another increase in population. Obviously it has to have this result, and to predict any other is simply to indulge in biological and mathematical fantasies.