The hunter-gatherer lifestyle, which can be described as "natural" to human beings, appears to have had much to recommend it. Examination of human remains from early hunter-gatherer societies has suggested that our ancestors enjoyed abundant food, obtainable without excessive effort, and suffered very few diseases. If this is true, it is not clear why so many humans settled in permanent villages and developed agriculture, growing crops and domesticating animals: cultivating fields was hard work, and it was in farming villages that epidemic diseases first took root. Whatever its immediate effect on the lives of humans, the development of settlements and agriculture undoubtedly led to a high increase in population density. This period, known as the New Stone Age, was a major turning point in human development, opening the way to the growth of the first towns and cities, and eventually leading to settled "civilizations."

Many human and non-human animals save commodities or money for future consumption. This behavior seems to reveal a preference of a delayed reward over an immediate one: the agent gives up some immediate pleasure in exchange for a future one. Thus the discounted value of the future reward should be greater than the un-discounted value of the present one. However, in some cases the agent does not wait for the envisioned occasion but uses their savings prematurely. For example, early in the year an employee might set aside money to buy Christmas presents but then spend it on a summer vacation instead. Such cases could be examples of weakness of will. That is, the agents may judge or resolve to spend their savings in a certain way for the greatest benefit but then act differently when temptation for immediate pleasure appears.

Simply giving employees a sense of agency ― a feeling that they are in control, that they have genuine decision -making authority ― can radically increase how much energy and focus they bring to their jobs. One 2010 study at a manufacturing plant in Ohio, for instance, carefully examined assembly -line workers who were empowered to make small decisions about their schedules and work environment. They designed their own uniforms and had authority over shifts while all the manufacturing processes and pay scales stayed the same. Within two months, productivity at the plant increased by 20 percent, with workers taking shorter breaks and making fewer mistakes. Giving employees a sense of control improved how much self-discipline they brought to their jobs.* radically

As businesses shift some core business activities to digital, such as sales, marketing, or archiving, it is assumed that the impact on the environment will be less negative. However, digital business activities can still threaten the environment. In some cases, the harm of digital businesses can be even more hazardous. A few decades ago, offices used to have much more paper waste since all documents were paper based. When workplaces shifted from paper to digital documents, invoices, and emails, it was a promising step to save trees. However, the cost of the Internet and electricity for the environment is neglected. A recent Wired report declared that most data centers' energy source is fossil fuels. When we store bigger data on clouds, increased carbon emissions make our green clouds gray. The carbon footprint of an email is smaller than mail sent via a post office, but still, it causes four grams of CO₂, and it can be as much as 50 grams if the attachment is big.

Problems often arise if an exotic species is suddenly introduced to an ecosystem. Britain's red and grey squirrels provide a clear example. When the grey arrived from America in the 1870s, both squirrel species competed for the same food and habitat, which put the native red squirrel populations under pressure. The grey had the edge because it can adapt its diet; it is able, for instance, to eat green acorns, while the red can only digest mature acorns. Within the same area of forest, grey squirrels can destroy the food supply before red squirrels even have a bite. Greys can also live more densely and in varied habitats, so have survived more easily when woodland has been destroyed. As a result, the red squirrel has come close to extinction in England.

Growing crops forced people to stay in one place. Hunter-gatherers typically moved around frequently, and they had to be able to carry all their possessions with them every time they moved. In particular, mothers had to carry their young children. As a result, hunter-gatherer mothers could have only one baby every four years or so, spacing their births so that they never had to carry more than one child at a time. Farmers, on the other hand, could live in the same place year after year and did not have to worry about transporting young children long distances. Societies that settled down in one place were able to shorten their birth intervals from four years to about two. This meant that each woman could have more children than her hunter-gatherer counterpart, which in turn resulted in rapid population growth among farming communities. An increased population was actually an advantage to agricultural societies, because farming required large amounts of human labor.

Over the last several decades, scholars have developed standards for how best to create, organize, present, and preserve digital information for future generations. What has remained neglected for the most part, however, are the needs of people with disabilities. As a result, many of the otherwise most valuable digital resources are useless for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as for people who are blind, have low vision, or have difficulty distinguishing particular colors. While professionals working in educational technology and commercial web design have made significant progress in meeting the needs of such users, some scholars creating digital projects all too often fail to take these needs into account. This situation would be much improved if more projects embraced the idea that we should always keep the largest possible audience in mind as we make design decisions, ensuring that our final product serves the needs of those with disabilities as well as those without.

All humans, to an extent, seek activities that cause a degree of pain in order to experience pleasure, whether this is found in spicy food, strong massages, or stepping into a too-cold or too-hot bath. The key is that it is a ‘safe threat'. The brain perceives the stimulus to be painful but ultimately non-threatening. Interestingly, this could be similar to the way humor works: a ‘safe threat' that causes pleasure by playfully violating norms. We feel uncomfortable, but safe. In this context, where survival is clearly not in danger, the desire for pain is actually the desire for a reward, not suffering or punishment. This reward-like effect comes from the feeling of mastery over the pain. The closer you look at your chilli-eating habit, the more remarkable it seems. When the active ingredient of chillies — capsaicin — touches the tongue, it stimulates exactly the same receptor that is activated when any of these tissues are burned. Knowing that our body is firing off danger signals, but that we are actually completely safe, produces pleasure. All children start off hating chilli, but many learn to derive pleasure from it through repeated exposure and knowing that they will never experience any real harm. Interestingly, seeking pain for the pain itself appears to be uniquely human. The only way scientists have trained animals to have a preference for chilli or to self-harm is to have the pain always directly associated with a pleasurable reward.