[extropy-chat] Why Progress Might Slow Down

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Robin Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu> wrote:
> >You need generations of strong isolation of small villages to get
> >much inbreeding and the US and Canada were founded by individual
> > or small family migrants from
> >the getgo.  There was never any inbreeding to dispose of.
> 
> You might be right, but I don't think we have the data to support
> your claim with any confidence.

Especially since the claim is wrong. Historically, rural America, which
was most of America prior to the 20th century, was heavily homogenous
and inbred. Social instruments prevented ethnic, religious, and caste
cross breeding. Catholics, Jews, Orthodox, and Protestants all looked
down on marrying outside one's religion. Same thing with ethnic groups,
some times to very violent degrees of enforcement (lynching for whites
and blacks marrying). Well educated parents looked down on marrying
uneducated, wealthy looked down on marrying beneath ones own kind.
There was little upward mobility by marriage in pre-20th century
America, all socio-economic mobility occured via industriousness, but
still did not remove social pressures against crossing ethnic and
religious barriers.

Even with the westward migration, ethnic groups tended to cluster unto
themselves. Germanics, Norwegian, Swedes, Dutch, Scotch, Irish,
Hispanics, Italians, etc all tended to cluster, and when the clustered,
they inbred.

Nor could those with the short end of the stick escape this in most
cases. Despite the egalitarian rhetoric of US history, most of the US
for most of its history represents a story of local communities
enforcing patron-client relationships, where one's future relied on
what one's last name was. Without cheap transportation, most
individuals never moved more than 20 miles from their place of birth.

Once the automobile became widely available, individuals from anywhere
could move anywhere else, start new lives, meet new people, and create
new identities. Where you came from became much less important than
what you did and where you were going.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                                    - Gen. John Stark
Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
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