[ExI] Death follows European contact (Mirco Romanato)

[Keith Henson]

On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 2:08 AM,  Mirco Romanato <painlord2k at libero.it> wrote:

snip
>
> I would more interested in researching if killing me would increase
> your reproductive fitness or not both long and short term.

It depends on the situation.  If times are good and you are not up
against resource limits (such as food) then the risk of trying to kill
others (who fight back) doesn't increase your reproductive fitness at
all.  In fact, it may get you killed for nothing.

On the other hand, if your tribe faces a resource crisis, then taking
a horrible risk to kill the neighbors and take their resources may be
a good trade off.  From the viewpoint of genes, even all the adults in
the tribe being killed isn't a total disaster because humans usually
consider the young women of a defeated tribe to be booty.  The winners
make wives or extra wives out of them and the genes march on.

I have talked here about the consequences of an inconsistent
environment for years

> If you want a pacific society, just build a society where killing cost
> everyone too much to be able to afford it.

That's a society where the population is not pushing the resource
limits.  Low population growth and/or increasing the resource base
will keep it that way.

> If you want a free society, just build a society where taking freedom
> from others would cost too much to anyone and everyone.
>
> In these cases you would be selecting against killers and slavers.

These don't seem consistent.  A free society may need to be full of
people who are willing and genetically predisposed to killing others
under enough provocation.

Keith