(A theory some friends and I came up with over breakfast one day)

So some cavemen are sitting around in their cave, eating some wild pig they hunted down earlier that day. They had recently discovered fire, and while it kept them warm and the big animals at bay, it was nothing to start a civilization over. Then one of the cavemen accidently drops a piece of raw pig meat in the fire. Through previous experience, he knows that reaching into the fire will hurt him, so he leaves it there (after all, there's more raw pig meat where that came from). But as the pig meat cooks, it starts to smell REALLY GOOD. So the caveman uses a stick to fish the piece of meat out of the fire. He tries a piece and it tastes REALLY GOOD. He (reluctantly) shares some with his companions, and they agree that it tastes REALLY GOOD. They give this particular type of pig meat its own name: Bacon. So the group starts talking about their new discovery:

(Translated from Caveman)
   "This is really good! I mean REALLY GOOD! We need to make this more often."
   "Do you know when this would be particularly good? First thing in the morning, right after sun up."
   "Sure, but we'd have to hunt pigs in the middle of the night in order to have pig meat in the morning."
   "Well, what if we go find some pigs, and instead of killing them, we catch them. Then we put them in a place where they can't run from us. We can have fresh bacon whenever we want it!"
   "But if we keep the pigs in a space that they can't escape from, they'll starve."
   "Then we'll have to bring food to them. We'll gather that ourselves and give it to the pigs."
   "OK, but we will have to stay with the pigs. We can't wander around anymore."
   "I think it's worth it, don't you?"
   "Yeah. I was just saying..."

So they captured some pigs and started breeding them. They also started gathering wheat and corn to feed the pigs, and eventually learned how to grow it themselves. They tried eating the wheat and corn to see if that is what made the bacon taste so good. Of course, they found that wheat and corn do not taste nearly as good as bacon, but one could still eat them if one had to.

Other wandering groups of cavemen would smell the bacon cooking and be drawn to the source. They would ask to try some, and the bacon cookers would refuse. Then the cavemen without bacon would either offer something in trade or try to take the bacon by force.

Thus, just from the discovery of bacon, early man went on to invent or discover

The end result is that all of civilization, the good and the bad, ultimately comes from bacon. At least, that's what I think.

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