[ExI] [Extropolis] trump

[Keith Henson]

On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 5:08 AM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
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> On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 8:43 PM Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
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>> > What is the advantage to genes for going to war vs starving in place?
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> There is evidence that, at least some of the time, nice guys do finish first because it's a fact that humans have fewer virulent warlike genes than any other primate.

I don't think you can make such a case.  The big difference is that
war mode is not on all the time as it is in the chimpanzees.  It does
not help your genes one bit to fight unless the alternative is worse
for the genes. That understanding is one that I think I failed to
convey.

> Chimpanzees, our closest living relative, are far more aggressive than we are, their group size never gets larger than about 120 individuals, if a group  gets larger than that a civil war is inevitable and the group splits.

Maximum group size is limited by the availability of food.  In the
environment of evolutionary adaptiveness (Stone Age more or less),
human groups had to split as well.

> If you put 4 million chimpanzees on an island as small as Manhattan they would tear each other apart in a matter of hours, but during the entire year of 2022 only 78 humans out of the 4 million on Manhattan killed one of their fellow Homo sapiens.

If the food supply was cut off, what do you think the toll would be?
The point I have tried to make is that a bleak reality of even the
anticipation of a bleak future will shift humans into war mode.
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> As for our Neanderthal cousins (we had a common ancestor about 600,000 years ago), they seem to have been even more pugnacious than chimps because, according to the best evidence we have today, their typical group size was only 10 to 30 individuals and the DNA genetic evidence indicates there was little or no interbreeding between the groups. There is even a theory, unproven but I think plausible, that the reason Homo sapiens were able to outcompete the Neanderthals is that we could cooperate between ourselves and form much larger groups in pursuit of more grandiose goals than Neanderthals could. If true this would be an example of Survival Of The Friendliest.

Perhaps.  I don't think we know enough to confidently make such statements.

Keith

>  John K Clark
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