"The agricultural revolution also transformed the way humans think about time. Seeds are planted in spring to be harvested in autumn; fields are left fallow so they may be productive the following year. Thus farming-based societies created economies of hope and aspiration, in which we focus almost unerringly on the future, and where the fruits of our labour are delayed. But it’s not only our work that is future-oriented: so much of modern life is a tangle of social goals and often-impossible expectations shaping everything from our love-lives to our health. Hunter-gatherers, by contrast, only worked to meet their immediate needs; they neither held themselves hostage to future aspirations, nor claimed privilege on the basis of past achievements. Understanding how the agricultural revolution transformed human societies was once no more than a question of intellectual curiosity. Now, though, it has taken on a more practical and urgent aspect. Many of the challenges created by the agricultural revolution, such as the problem of scarcity, have largely been solved by technology – yet our preoccupation with hard work and unrestrained economic growth remains undimmed."