Human society has become more mechanized and industrialized, to be sure. That has been a bit of a double-edged sword, since we live better and eat better than we ever did in more primitive times, even if we were "closer to nature," so speak. Strictly speaking, "the natural way" is pretty harsh and cruel - very cold and indifferent. Sure, nature is also beautiful, and I can see where some might even see it as spiritual, although such beliefs (or non-beliefs) obviously vary from individual to individual.
While I can't justify or explain everything our society has done, at least in terms of improving technologies related to food production and other industries which enhance human quality of life - I think a lot of it was done with good intentions in mind. Through much of history, humans really didn't eat that much or didn't eat that well. Some years were better than others, I suppose. It's one of the most basic human needs, and humans have certainly devoted a great deal of time, energy, intellect, and resources to try to figure out this age-old dilemma of how to feed the people. Maybe we could be doing some things better, but we could be doing a heck of a lot worse, too.
Yeah what you say has got some backing to it, but then again.. You know I just a read a large book that dealt a lot with the pre-contact / post-contact world in the Amazon rainforest. And I guess what I find is, from reading all kinds of things like that, is that a stable human/nature dynamic can seem to fit themselves to each other like a glove. And our scientists go there, to learn from them, as we erase their cultures. But an economist might just look at all of that land and go, 'well this soil is terrible for mono-cultures.' You know what I mean?
And people complain that the lifestyle was hard, but if you're trained to use a bow and arrow, if you're trained to be a nomad, if you know what to look for, then is it really hard? No, because you grew up with it. It is your language. (and it might even be humane, depending on how good of an arrow poison you have?) We think it's hard, because all we do is sit here on laptops.
But it is true, yes, that our way of doing it does/has seemed to promote growth. And it has given people the time, I guess, not to worry about hunting and growing food for themselves, so that theoretically they can become productive at other things. (but what exactly are we doing?)
And now, isn't there going to be a fertilizer crisis? Isn't there a supply chain crisis that's going to play out now, because of war? So if that happens, then the growth breaks down. Who has the best soil in the world? How long will the best soil even last, are we burning it out? In our model, does productive output
need to be constant. Do cattle really need to be processed every couple minutes, otherwise the stockmarket bars take a plunge? Do we really need to consume so many millions of barrels of oil everyday, otherwise our way breaks down?
