[dgently7]

im surprised that none of the comments have called out haber bosh (or maybe more generically the discovery of the role of nitrogen to plants)

w.o that (and other agri improvements) we wouldnt have enough spare calories as a species to devote to these other non food production related activities, like say poking rocks with electrons until they can become computers that can run excel. its really hard to visualize how much of human effort across history has just been about food production.