It is not my experience in the least that BanglaDeshis are mild mannered. Those I knew in East London were quite rough. They are physically small but went in gangs and are therefore more than a match for blacks.

"I think most very small human groups follow this pattern. It was not until more recently when you started to have larger communities of farmers or pastoralists or whatnot that the benefits of violence, bombast, and charisma began to outweigh the risks."

I think the **relative** benefit of violence in different pre-state societies would vary also according to the required paternal investment in their region.

In an environment where the women could feed the kids themselves then men could take more risks to get the benefit of two or more sets of kids.

In a harsher environment where large paternal investment is needed and especially one where a man could only feed one set of kids there's less benefit to violence.

''Are you saying that autism, dyslexia and adhd are less "derived"? In other words, were they more common in the past and became less common?''

Peter Fros,
i don't understand your question. I think the majority of minority neuroconditions are des-selected in human societies, at least their Full-phenotype expressions like bipolar disorder (or reorder) or autism and their ''directly derivative neuroconditions'' like cyclothimie and asperger syndrome.
I understand that the ''genes of adhd'' are more common in the past. Minority neuroconditions (aka, mental illness) are related one which other, is very common commorbidities. Where have the adhd genes, have the autism genes, the schizophrenia genes, because, they are come from the same ''fountain'', the ''genetic of human diversity''.
I think, if today and during greater time of human history, since the early days of civilization, the neuroconditions are strongly des-selected because their higher custs, so, other mechanisms beyond selection, have maintened him, example, the schizophrenia.
My theory, adaptative modern human is the combination and decantation of this full-phenotypes and derivations of the neuroconditions
and this process of combination between the father and mother genes is equally so important than selection, when spermatozoids ''marry'' with ovaries. So, more than one combination can happen and depend of gene pool of couple, you can have the combination that result in autism. Is not, autistic people marry and pass their genes, but some phenotype combinations in ''genetically predisposed people'' (and the neurotypicals) can be result in expression of autism spectrum.
Schizophrenics have very low fertility, so, genetic combination maintened the full-phenotypes like autism, schizophrenia and adhd spectra.
Is not like as ''selection or not selection'', but, the gene pool and their possible genetic combinations during the process of conception (sexual relations).
About the, adhd genes in the past was majority, i get it of the work about the '' human colonization of entire habitable continents and adhd genes function'' (Harpending and Cochran).
My other theory is about the cognitive differences between the adaptative neurotypicals and neurodiverses. Neurodiverses is like a strong-specialized people, so neurotypicals are multifunctional. In the past, probably, this full phenotypes and more derivatives (very well more adaptative) live in more numbers than today and the selection to multifunctionalism, create a mix for example, between a schizotypal individual male with a broader autistic female, and generation by generation, the specialization of this atavic conditions was seeing replaced by multifunctional people.
Like puzzles.
I believe there ancestral traits of the species, like pragmatic mind in asians or ideacional mind (ideological) in europeans. This are traits, so common within the populations that probably was the first traits in the first communities of these collectivities, like ''fingerprint of the race''. So, is not imperative selected this traits because they are present in all individuals or in majority (at least 60%) of individuals of the group. In all mates, this traits are be combined and expressed.
In the case of neuro-minority conditions to seems that this is little more complex because it are phenotypes and not only ''a trait'' but a combination of many traits, but the mechanisms is the same.
If, there 30% of population in control groups who have more ''autistic traits'' so, is very probable that greater majority of population have at least one autistic trait, and if ''traits=genes'', some traits of autism that are very advantageous was strong selected in a pre historic past.

I'm not so sure about the Bushmen being self-effacing and considerate of other peoples' feelilngs. Henry Harpending said that conversation among them was typically one long passive-aggressive whine: "You should have done that for me! You owe this to me! You were supposed to..!

Yes, my sources mention that also. It's kind of weird. Bushmen were very careful to avoid standing out, or grabbing credit, or giving the impression that they were any better than anyone else (even if they were!). And they did share everything. But they also seemed to live in a state of constant emotional insecurity that could rise to the surface at any time.

Hey, I didn't say they were noble savages!

There is a series of commercials running recently for a telecom company called Softbank featuring a talking dog and a black man, but in general they're not "very visible" in Japanese advertising, certainly in comparison to American and Western media where they're massively overrepresented. And there aren't many of them in Japanese cities.

Anon, black men are very visible in Japanese advertising and you see a surprising number of them in Japanese cities I'm told. I suppose it may be policy to deflect accusations of racism. Japan is run by clever people, they seem to worked out as long as inflation isn't a real problem, you can print money, buy back the debt and cancel it.

Turchin says the successful middle class became nobles if they could, and the poor nobles killed each other off in periodic instability. I suppose the two processes meant the nobles may have became less warlike over time, even if they didn't get hanged very often.

In late 14th early 15th century France, 40-30% of noble daughters went to nunneries. I think what women were doing and the skewed sex ratio as a result of men getting killed may be quite significant.

Before the State came into being, men were organized into small, loosely defined groups where authority was wielded through a mixture of violence, bombast, and charisma.

I've read quite a bit about the South African Bushmen, and apparently they were almost obsessively self-effacing and considerate of each others feelings. Being a disliked bully in a small group where all the men carry spears and poison arrows is exceedingly dangerous!

I think most very small human groups follow this pattern. It was not until more recently when you started to have larger communities of farmers or pastoralists or whatnot that the benefits of violence, bombast, and charisma began to outweigh the risks.

Japan isn't really a liberal democratic society. It's only nominally and officially a liberal democracy as an American vassal. Remember that Japan's liberal democratic constitution was written and imposed by the US after the war with Japan under military occupation. In reality, Japan is more of a national socialist society, something like what Nazi Germany might have been like had it won the war:

http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue23/Locke23.htm

"One way to describe the Japanese achievement is to say that they have achieved what the Nazis wanted to achieve but didn’t, largely of course because they were mad serial killers obsessed with a lot of things other than economics. Ironically, Asiatic Japan comes closer than any nation on earth to what Hitler wanted. It is a socially conservative, hierarchical, technocratic, orderly, pagan, sexist, nationalist, racially pure, anti-communist, non-capitalist and anti-Semitic society."

I would add that the Japanese were able to achieve not only what the Nazis were unable to but what European nationalists were unable to after the war due to American domination of the Continent.

China is national socialist and quite similar to Japan.

Wouldn't the lawbreakers removed from the gene pool between "1500 and 1750" have almost entirely been from the lower orders of society. I'm not clear how this affected the style of speaking among the educated, if the gene flow was from upper to lower class, as Gregory Clark says. Upper class mens' genetic propensity for violence must have declined quite drastically. Some families moving up in social class could explain it I suppose.

"men were organized into small, loosely defined groups where authority was wielded through a mixture of violence, bombast, and charisma"

Charisma deployed by grand speaking (ie everyone else listening) would enable a big man to go beyond a faction to take over the community without having to fight everyone. So the the power to speak convincingly was probably being selected for.

And that way of speaking is still quite important in a free market in ideas. Quite often it is the singer not the song.

It seems to me that when men were often thugs, genes that let women elicit care would be strongly selected for. Roxolana was supposed to be playful and irresistibly charming. Not much like Elizabeth Bennet then.

Be they thug or nerd, few men are naturally good listeners. In Pride and Prejudice the first time Mr Darcy proposes to Elizabeth Bennett, he delivers a strange monologue. Intellectual problem solving in civil society does not necessarily select for conversational skills. Both a thug and a nerd have have their repective attributes. Nerds' are more specialised, but their's is still a masculine mentality.

There are some societies where infantcide is very common. I don't know if a man who loves and leaves could have much success there. Thug genes in a mother would be likely to result in high mortality in her children. Nerd genes in a female may not be so great for reproductive fitness either.

Before the State came into being, men were organized into small, loosely defined groups where authority was wielded through a mixture of violence, bombast, and charisma.

And cunning:

A high and efficient servant of the Overland, an outlaw among outlaws and yet their relentless scourge, Slade was at once the most bloody, the most dangerous and the most valuable citizen that inhabited the savage fastnesses of the mountains. … Slade was born in Illinois, of good parentage. At about twenty-six years of age he killed a man in a quarrel and fled the country. At St. Joseph, Missouri, he joined one of the early California-bound emigrant trains, and was given the post of train-master. One day on the plains he had an angry dispute with one of his wagon-drivers, and both drew their revolvers. But the driver was the quicker artist, and had his weapon cocked first. So Slade said it was a pity to waste life on so small a matter, and proposed that the pistols be thrown on the ground and the quarrel settled by a fist-fight. The unsuspecting driver agreed, and threw down his pistol — whereupon Slade laughed at his simplicity, and shot him dead! — Mark Twain, Roughing It, ch. ix and ch. x

Off topic, but in case you haven't seen it: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26691884

"They speak louder, fail to modulate their voice volume, speak for much longer at a stretch with many short pause durations during their talk, but take much longer to respond to the conversational partner. (Tannock, 2005) "

I think making others listen while one speaks would be a side effect of being aggressive, and often a rather counterproductive one. A non-hereditary leader can't take loyalty for granted, and paying attention to others is very hard work. Conversations that do not give the opportunity for tit for tat social grooming, get terminated. The internet is not popular because it is a source of information, but because it lets people give their opinion.

Btw, re: the main thread, I could imagine "genetic pacification" spreading speech signals that signal pacification, while not actually enhancing real communication ability.

E.g. they enhance soft speech that allows the speaker to avoid the attentions of pacifiers.

This may not actually make communication better – an very indirect communicator with a talent for disguising his intentions would be less of a "big man", but I can't see that this would help them actually discuss.

This could even be a sort of "deceptive" soft speech – walk softly and carry a big stick.

We might see examples of this in Orientals – not actually selected for particularly low violence, but selected well not to be the nail that sticks out, lest it get hammered down.

Peter, http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0081237 – a new interesting study involving Kleisner.

They found that

- real intelligence did no covary with face shape differences in their sample,

- perceived intelligence did covary with face shape differences in their sample

- perceived intelligence did covary with real intelligence, but only for the males

The low perceived intelligence faces in both male and female samples have small, robust, masculine features (high midfacial width to height ratio, larger jaw), compared to the average and high perceived intelligence face.

Their take home from this is that

"This means that our raters accurately assessed intelligence from faces of men based on visual cues that simply are not explicable from shape variability in men's faces. It is important to recall that our subjects were prompted to assume a neutral expression while their photo was taken and only photos of subjects with a neutral expression were included in the study.

We can speculate about attributions of intelligence based on particular configurations of eyes or gaze, colour of eyes, hair and skin, or skin texture. These hypotheses should be tested in future studies."

One interpretation here which I am not sure but may fit might be that relatively low intelligence males tend to exaggerate the masculinity and "toughness" of their faces even when prompted to hold a fairly inexpressive and neutral facial expression (machismo and stupidity are correlated, real masculinity and stupidity aren't). They tend to pull the lips in, narrow the eyes, set their jaws. While real facial physical masculinity has a connection with low perceived intelligence but not low real intelligence.

This study is on very high performing biology students (mean IQs far beyond the average), so may not generalize to normal populations.

You write: "Social relations are still incompletely pacified in Ethiopia. This is partly because of recurring conflicts between central and peripheral sources of authority, but also because many people chose until recent times to be outlaws, i.e., those outside the sphere of State-imposed law:"

This reminds me of things that used to go on in China, where organized banditry was a recurrent feature of society. We don't usually think of Ethopia and China being in the same boat. (But then I guess you could say the same thing about the Wild West.)

"Peter, your idea that a state monopoly on violence pacifies a population implies that the Nordic nations would be among the least pacified."

They were until quite late.

"It is more likely that populations with pre-existing high intelligence were better able to civilize"

Maybe higher IQ populations pacify faster when they get around to it – maybe partly because they are more efficient at it e.g. produce enough surplus to afford lots of prison places.

Interesting thoughts – seems plausible, selection on martial ability -> selection on verbal ability (one way or another).

sorry to be semi o/t but

"become a shifta. The dictionary defines this term to mean "outlaw, bandit, brigand, rebel". It was applied to anyone who committed a crime and then fled to the wilderness, thereafter living by stealth and cunning,"

made me wonder about the origin of "shifty" which according to

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=shifty

has a first recorded use of 1884 which would be circa 20-30 years after the British campaign in Ethiopia.

Peter, your idea that a state monopoly on violence pacifies a population implies that the Nordic nations would be among the least pacified. Now they are widely observed to be the most pacified of all Europeans.

It is more likely that populations with pre-existing high intelligence were better able to civilize, and to behave in a more civil fashion within the context of a civilized society. Such an explanation takes into account well known and well measured quantities – that is, intelligence – and does not return any obviously inconsistent results.

''They speak louder, fail to modulate their voice volume, speak for much longer at a stretch with many short pause durations during their talk, but take much longer to respond to the conversational partner''

Hihihihihihi, me… Autistics also have problem with voice volume.
Hmmmm, adhd related to higher rates of non-righthandedness. Non-righthandedness related more to non-conformity, monkeys who are lefthanded are more dominant than others, left handed dogs are more agressives with strangers than right handed dogs (to seems, well, was that i read some months before, i have the links). We have more CEOS who are left and ambidexterous, more president (by today,is possible that many presidents and governments in other times was forced to write with right). Psychosis spectra related also with more non-righthandedness.
Left handedness, autism, dyslexia and other neuro-minority groups are atavic groups or phenotypes, before the selection process. This could explain less incidence of left handedness in modern societies, like Western and Eastern (specially) than aboriginals and amerindians (amerindians have more adhd and yanomamis, example, have more than 20% of non-righthandedness.)
The selection priorise some traits and des-selected the most part of neurodiverse (and very specific) traits in your full-expression because in a complex societies is important to have a multifunctional individuals and adhd, autistic and others are very intelectually specifics.
The ''normal'' peoples today made by the balanced selection of this extrem traits manifested in some subgroups, all of this normals have all of the atavic traits but without the extreme or derivative manifestations.
Right handed people tend to be more multifunctional and left handed tend to be more specialized. The ''poor'' development of left side of the brain to most of the left and ambidexterous in true is a demographically or numerically manifestation of early non-selected traits of the human beings and the multifunctional cognitive phenotypes is like as accumulation of ''time-selection processes'', like blue eyes, you turn off the genes that are responsible by express the ''melanine eyes'. (to each less melanine, less brown eyes, this could mean ''disconnection of the genes, slowly)
Left handedness and ambidexterity COULD be a non-recessive trait, because is a trait that are very des-selected specially in modern societies but continue to exist.
But i can be very wrong about that, but we have thinking there some types of recessivity, the contextual and the genetic. Blue eyes is recessive around the world, but not in northern europe.
If left handedness is posterior to right handedness majority, so there a possibility the difference in recessivity and genetic dominance among this traits is not so ''dualistic'' black and white like we believe.

I don't know if you read comments on posts so old as this one, but I have a different theory for what caused the transition from simple hoe agriculature to comlex state societies: the institution of human conquest, a cultural innovation that was in many ways an extension of the idea of animal domestication and which may have been introduced by tribes specializing in animal husbandry. Certainly conquest was an innovation which corresponds with the rise of civilization everywhere around the world. It is also, strangely, a taboo subject in many ways: of course the nobility never had any trouble talking about the "right of conquest" but for the lower classes to talk about it was strictly verboten. Evidence for this is readily available: do a scholarly search on the origins and importance of the institution of conquest and you will find almost nothing.

I once wrote a letter to Jack Goody outlining my theory, using the Adam and Eve myth in its Mesopotamian context as historical evidence. You seem open to entertaining new and even seemingly bizarre ideas (the demon within). I thought you might find this interesting: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://vixra.org/pdf/1101.0027v2.pdf

P.S You may need to consult the derivation and original meaning of the word "allegory" in an etymological dictionary if you don't know it already. Do that first: http://www.westegg.com/etymology/

Contact me by email if you want to follow up. I have some funny stories to tell.

id say there's a laffers curve on IQ im about 125- 130 but have many friends i bet are higher however im fond of telling them when thit hits the fan they will need me more than i they ive built hydro electric generators on one of my properties im a licenced pilot a rescue diver i carry concealed i can and do build anything and always I lead im also big and handsome. the point is my iq is a big advantage over bigger people and to adapt to almost anything but at some point it seems to turn one nerdy and weak

"Only issues I would have with this idea is that 1) what is a disciplined form of warrior values?"

My (simplified) experience is that violence has two separate and independent components:

1) Propensity to violence: bad temper, impulsivity etc.

2) Capacity for violence: killer instinct for want of a better phrase (which i believe is tied up in either a lack of empathy or the ability to consciously switch empathy on and off under certain circumstances).

The two components are independent imo so you get four combinations
1) High Propensity / High Capacity
2) High Propensity / Low Capacity
3) Low Propensity / High Capacity
4) Low Propensity / Low Capacity

If you apply a rule of law to a population made up of those four categories it selects first against those with high propensity and high capacity i.e. men who are quick to use violence and who are good at it. Most of your murderers will come from this group and in the past most of your warriors also imo.

The second group selected against will be those with high propensity but low capacity i.e. men who are quick to use violence but who pull their punches somewhat and aren't particularly lethal except unintentionally. These are your manslaughter group.

The third group are your soldier-ants. Individuals whose family genetics combine a high capacity for violence but paired with a low propensity for violence as that is the only "high" combination that can slip through the cracks of your rule of law so imo the soldier ant type is effectively selected for whenever a human society has an effective criminal justice system over a long enough time.

And lastly you have the fourth group with both low propensity and low capacity.

.
"one where the person does as they are told by a ruling elite?"

That is one possibility. The possibility i like more is that of a standard citizen with a lot more controlled aggression.

In real terms an example of what i mean would be the cop colonies you sometimes get in big cities in the US. They're the same as similar neighborhoods in most respects except if someone was screaming in the street there'd be about 100 guys running to help within seconds.

Roman ex-Legionary colonia would have been similar i imagine.

.
"and 2) its hard to imagine any society doing this while the they can."

True. It's just interesting to me to imagine what a city would be like if it was mostly made up of those cop colony type neighborhoods.

.
Then again it might be some of the traits contained in the high propensity bracket that were the necessary ones.

I'm not proposing this or anything. I just find it interesting.

Peter, I am not quite sure why you use the "but" in
"Ron,

Yes, but those other selection pressures would have been operating over a much longer time scale — since the advent of agriculture. This is why high intelligence if often associated with various mental illnesses. When selection operates over a shorter time scale, it tends to favor rough-and-ready solutions…"

Clearly the latter part of what you say presupposes something like the Cochran-Harpending thesis about Ashkenazi IQ and a number of neurological diseases or conditions which are relatively prevalent in Ashkenazim but what are you saying about the Chinese?

Yes, makes me think for a civilization to survive long-term it needs to consciously breed those traits back in (but in a self-disciplined form).
Only issues I would have with this idea is that 1) what is a disciplined form of warrior values? one where the person does as they are told by a ruling elite? and 2) its hard to imagine any society doing this while the they can.

This is what makes State societies so fragile. They breed out warrior qualities and breed in various talents for "gaming the system." But what happens when the system collapses?

Depends on what we mean by collapse.

For instance, we could say the order of Shogunate Japan, their old system, collapsed, and in that instance they back first Meiji Revolution workers, then world class fearsome soldiers, then sararimen.

Similarly, in the kind of states if some foreign ethnic group replaces the ruling class, in that kind of collapse they go on as before.

In the event of the collapse of agriculture or law and order, well firstly everyone dies in the first instance, and fighting over remaining resources is probably a harsh selective filter for certain warrior values (in the most likely scenario), while in the second scenario, it is a little difficult to see how this can happen without the growth of warrior types already increasing massively.

@Peter Frost
Yes, makes me think for a civilization to survive long-term it needs to consciously breed those traits back in (but in a self-disciplined form).

You have an erudite readership, professor, so I'm sorry to intrude, but…
that Chinese man is hot. Except for the tats.

There was some pithy piece written by a black woman lamenting the lack of Asian male leads, illustrated with a bunch of pleasant, short-haired Asian men. And then I read your blog immediately with your chosen picture contrasting so starkly with those others, LOL!

Anonymous at *March 30, 2013 at 12:20:00 PM EST* wept.

Ron Unz, you're still the cat's meow, though

Sean
"Rice agriculture started in the south (see here), but the first real civilization (with writing) was well to the north. By my way of thinking that means rice farming does not select for intelligence"

Alternatively

1) northerners had a higher base IQ for latitude reasons

2) agriculture came to China from two routes, a northern route via the Wei valley and a southern route via India

3) the northerners develop a civ first either because of the latitude IQ advantage or because agriculture gets there first

4) the northeners expand south and pick up rice farming

5) rice in the hands of the new northern colonists and in the warmer latitudes of the south can support a higher population density than the crops grown in the north

Peter Frost
I think most of those points are plausible especially

"especially if tradeoffs exist between high intelligence and other, no less valuable traits."

This could also combine with diminishing returns. For one niche an IQ all the way up to 130 might linearly improve your competitive chances but in another niche diminishing returns might kick in after say 110 IQ.

.
"I think a larger factor in preventing any extremely rapid rise in Chinese mental ability would have been the conflicting pressures on peasants for all sorts of other characteristics"

Yes.

.
"he continued—and to this day continues—to associate the countryside with banditry as a matter of course"

This is one of the reasons i don't think the Chinese average will be smooth across the country. I think there will be distinct patterns to it.

.
"What about the border reivers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Reivers

Wasn't their heyday the period during which Clark argues selection for the behaviors for economic growth and the Industrial Revolution took place?"

Geography again imo.

http://www.uk.filo.pl/uk_relief_map.jpg

England&Wales:
- lowlands in the south and centre
- uplands in the north, southwest and Wales.

Scotland north to south:
- uplands, lowlands, uplands

The yeoman farmer / artisan types were in the fertile lowlands and the bandits in the uplands.

I think China is likely to be similar with one story along the big river valleys and a different one in the bordering hinterland.

consists of a long chain of somewhat loose reasoning

It is speculative, but the points I raise are actually mostly independent, not actually connected by a chain of reasoning (wherein A must be true, or statement B has no basis, etc. all before a conclusion).

The basic points I'm raising (speculatively) are only

- as you say, "competition for frugality and diligence (or IQ) , but only in a hierarchical class society where the farmer's crop was being appropriated by the authorities; rice farming in and of itself was not that tough". that is, the toughness of being a farmer, and thereby selection on IQ (and frugality and dilligence), is tougher in a place where elites (perhaps randomly chosen) are stealing your productivity, compared to one where no such elites exist (even if that place has more competition).

- if there's no or less downward mobility, and if the upper classes are selected for violent behaviour and low intelligence (or at least more so), then their genes cannot flow to the lower classes. the upper classes will also tend to stay static or shrink over time, due to this block on downward mobility (my child must be knight / samurai, whatever, so I practice slightly less reproduction) and (violently mediated) tendencies towards political centralisation shrinking their niche (the state controls violence and takes a monopoly on it).

- a society which is an all against all competition and where the state is relatively benevolent (all in terms of reproductive fitness), will select for being competitive against fellow citizens, while submissive to the state, while a society which the state (or elite groups) are predatory but all against all competition is less marked, will select for being less authoritarian (mistrustful of elites) and less competitive with fellow citizens (horizontal collectivism).

As to whether this would actually work to build a better solider, or pans out as I would think once all factors are in play, I do not know.

What about the border reivers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Reivers

Wasn't their heyday the period during which Clark argues selection for the behaviors for economic growth and the Industrial Revolution took place?

OK anon, I think your argument consists of a long chain of somewhat loose reasoning; if it is saying that there is something special about the Japanese I would disagree, and ask you to note the excellent performance of Chinese and North Korean troops in the Korean war.

I've tried out a couple of arguments against this kind of pressure in the comments to your other post (non-heritable random variance means favoring certain family backgrounds to a certain degree can be eugenic, intraclass IQ based competition negates large swathes of class stratification based on IQ – and unfortunately didn't get much of a response to this one), so what about this for a third? -

Let's say you're in a system where you're predated on.

This predator faction, let's call it the aristocracy, has fairly strict limits on its growth – because there are strong taboos against "downward mobility". They may reproduce in large degree, but when they reach the limits of their niche, rather than "go down" they simply don't reproduce and / or kill one another for the remaining slots (in that sense, although extremely rich, the predators are also extremely Malthusian). This is in addition to the dynamics of state centralization working to shrink the aristocratic niche over time.

Now lets ignore them for a bit and say that you, the prey faction, are constrained in using weapons and the force of the body to protect yourself. How do you prevent predation, survive and reproduce?

One answer would be intelligence.

Call it the "Seven Samurai" theory of intelligence selection.
Now does this work out to be a stronger selection pressure (on intelligence) than "fair" competition between the "prey"? I don't know.

However, although which is more intelligence selective is up for grabs, other characteristics may show sharper divergence.

Unlike in a system where humans are constrained to competing against one another fairly, the incentives skew towards being more cunning and also more cooperative (because there's a clear class based us and them barrier, rather than a Neo-Hobbesian libertarian-ish "civilized" war of all against all). They're less dilligent and competitive but more inventive, cunning and creative and have more asabiyah against would be exploiters, although they might have more of a deceptive facade of obedience. They become "foxy peasants" (as in Kurosawa). They'd be better at adopting new technology and better at forging a nation state to work together against an outgroup, and they'd do these things earlier and more effectively. The nation would hold together and they wouldn't have anything like the Cultural Revolution where everyone basically turns on everyone else.

(Working against this asabiyah would be Greg Cochran's postualted effect whereby long term states tend to have the asabiyah bred out of them, by serving as peasant warriors in imperial armies. But, if you live in a country where the war is mostly stratified into a single "warrior class" this wouldn't effect you very much!)

But were Chinese peasant farmers really in a business so competitive that there was pressure for efficiency of metabolism. Small Chinese would be more efficient than big Chinese, yet Chinese apparently thought they towered over Japanese (who were mocked as 'dwarf pirates').

Moreover there seems to have been pressure on Chinese rice farmers metabolism for increased manufacture of aldehyde from alcohol, to keep them from drinking too much:-"biochemically equivalent to the effects of disulfiram (a drug used to prevent relapse)" here

Rice agriculture started in the south (see here), but the first real civilization (with writing) was well to the north. By my way of thinking that means rice farming does not select for intelligence; in fact it allows enough alcohol making from the surplus crop whereby farmers could be constantly drunk. Hence rice farmers underwent selection against alcohol consumption.

I suppose the central authorities taxing of farmers would be a crushing burden. It has been true that Mennonite farmers with low personal consumption expanded prodigiously so Ron may well be right about the competition for frugality and diligence, but only in a hierarchical class society where the farmers crop was being appropriated by the authorities; rice farming in and of itself was not that tough.

I've read that in medieval Japan every aspect of life was officially regulated, and even horses required ID papers. Japan being able to enforce a total suppression of (previously widespread) firearms, suggests the country had no bandit problem. Joseon Korea had a long continuous era of law and order too.

——
Interesting how Korea as a tributary state of China became the 'Hermit Kingdom' (like the north now). Japan taking Korea from China in 1895 led to increased nationalism in China, and led to Japan coming into conflict with Russia in 1905; seriously weakening it. England and France had been relying on Russia to deter Germany. The weakness of Russia presented Germany with a golden opportunity to go to war. England began a huge military build up, and reached a military understanding with France. World war became inevitable.

There are precedents for Korea's problems precipitating a world war. If north Korea were to collapse and be taken over by south Korea, it could be the spark again, but I think the ramifications would unfold slowly – over a decade or more.

The point made by Feichtinger et al. (1996) reminds me very much of Dumezil and probably parallel situations influenced the structure of the IE and Shinto tripartate religions.

At the risk of crossing too far into politics, the survival of society depends ultimately on the state reigning in its economy (capitalists, trade unions), and reaching harmony with its would-be "big men" by imposing constraints upon "bad boy" behaviour whilst not demonising them simply for their manliness.

There is one more model. Sexual freedom of women. Even in Chinese history there were moments/regions when women enjoyed sexual freedom and single motherhood. Which also selects (among others) for lower intelligence, sexy bad boys/bandits.

"The counter-examples don't ignore the "p". They're recently formed groups who share the same ancestral history as the groups they're being compared to."

Fair enough. You may be right as i'm not properly switched on with this topic as i think the standard pacification processes will dominate in this case but at the same time like to stick up for hbdchick's ideas as a default reaction.

The counter-examples don't ignore the "p". They're recently formed groups who share the same ancestral history as the groups they're being compared to.

"You'd have to show that outbreeding leads to lower homicide rates. You are just asserting that it does."

I'm not really asserting that. I'm asserting that it's possible. Your counter examples keep ignoring the p in

p + o – i

so you're arguing with a straw man.

If p is much bigger than o or i then the question becomes moot.

I think the main pacification effect – executing criminals and differential death rates in war – over many centuries will turn out to be a much more dominant effect and if so the effect of o and i will only be seen among populations where p is exactly equal which i think is likely to be pretty much nowhere – making it moot.

However those will be the places to look – populations that had exactly the same p, o and i throughout history before some event changed o or i without also changing p. I think the odds on finding such a place is pretty small but that's a different argument.

Like i say i think the eventual answer will be moot but that doesn't mean the question isn't worth asking or that it might be possible to find a test population somewhere on the planet that fits the above conditions if you look hard enough.

'''

"Southerners tend to practice more cousin marriage, have lower rates of homicide and various kinds of violence and tend to by stereotype tend to be more intelligent (Ramanujan, TamBrams, high education Kerala, etc.)."

I'm not going to get into the specific cases as like i say i think the p in the equation is likely to be dominant however i also know that averages can be very misleading on this as different groups can have such dramatically varying homicide rates.

So what are the homicide rates among the smaller tribal groups in the interior of the south (or among the pathans in the northern mountains) that were more recently tribal or hunter-gatherers?

(This is more relevant to the main pacification argument.)

'''

"have lower rates of homicide and various kinds of violence"

A slightly separate but relevant point is what violence?

I would divide violence into

1) male-male violence (which also includes most non-sexual crime with a violent or invasive element e.g. burglary)

2) male-female violence

3) communal or group violence

Although they overlap they don't run entirely parallel.

I think the main pacification process primarily effects male-male violence and if there are big differences between outbred and inbred populations related to violence the differences will be in the other two categories.

For example is there a difference in India between the northern long-term agrarian belt and the more tropical southern zones which distorts the average.

Southerners tend to practice more cousin marriage, have lower rates of homicide and various kinds of violence and tend to by stereotype tend to be more intelligent (Ramanujan, TamBrams, high education Kerala, etc.).

Honduras and El Salvador are both about 90% mestizo. Colombia is about 75% mestizo and mulatto. In Venezuela, about 50% claim to be multiracial and about 42% claim to be white. These countries have higher rates than Latin American countries with more Amerindians such as Bolivia and Peru, and higher rates than black African countries.

The black population in places like Brazil, although outbred relative to places like India, a) didn't have centuries of agricultural pacification before hand and b) generally haven't had the rule of law applied in the same way as it was applied in europe from 1300 to 1900 or at least for not as long.

The highest homicide rates are in Latin American countries such as Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Venezuela, etc. They have higher rates than their less outbred tropical counterparts in South America and Africa.

The distinct difference in homicide rates in northern europe across the hajnal line supports the idea that outbreeding somehow magnifies the effect of the rule of law.

The relatively small difference in homicide rate between northwest europe and other regions that have had *far* more centuries of pacification supports the idea that the outbreeding component can have a dramatic effect on the pacification rate where the rule of law is being applied strongly.

There isn't really a distinct difference in homicide rates across the Hajnal line. And the differences aren't necessarily in the direction you seem to imply. For example, Ireland tends to have equal or lower rates than the UK.

You'd have to show that outbreeding leads to lower homicide rates. You are just asserting that it does.

@anon

I'm saying

1) High-density agriculture has a pacification effect based on the application of a rule of law over centuries. This works by reducing the reproductive success of impulsively violent individuals.

2) Outbreeding and inbreeding effect the pacification rate either by

a) making it either easier or more difficult for the active agent – the rule of law – to be applied to the population

or

b) itself directly influencing the frequencies of certain violent vs non-violent traits within the population.

or both.

Either way both effects also require centuries.

3) The combination can be simply modelled as n1p + n2o – n3i

where

n1, n2, n3 = number of centuries
p = some standard rate of civilizational pacification
o = represents the effect of outbreeding above the human average
i = represents the effect of inbreeding above the human average

The model would predict

1) Those populations with the least amount of pacification centuries i.e. the least number of centuries spent under high-density agriculture would have the highest base homicide rates.

The regions that got high-density farming relatively late would be the tropics and northern eurasia which tallies with the list of countries in the links you gave with tropical Africa and countries like Brazil with a lot of ancestry from tropical Africa being the worst.

The distinct difference in homicide rates in northern europe across the hajnal line supports the idea that outbreeding somehow magnifies the effect of the rule of law.

The relatively small difference in homicide rate between northwest europe and other regions that have had *far* more centuries of pacification supports the idea that the outbreeding component can have a dramatic effect on the pacification rate where the rule of law is being applied strongly.

The rule of law here is a force applied to the population which reduces the reproductive success of the most violent. Obviously hanging horse thieves will have a much stronger effect than containing and ignoring ghettos allowing the more violent to have greater reproductive success.

The black population in places like Brazil, although outbred relative to places like India, a) didn't have centuries of agricultural pacification before hand and b) generally haven't had the rule of law applied in the same way as it was applied in europe from 1300 to 1900 or at least for not as long.

This may suggest outbreeding acts more as a magnifier than a direct cause though.

I used India, China and the Middle East loosely to illustrate the point but in reality one would need to know more details to see if the model fitted well among the mid-latitude countries. For example is there a difference in India between the northern long-term agrarian belt and the more tropical southern zones which distorts the average.

The Islamic version of cousin-marriage is *above* that level. The Northern Euro version is *below* that level.

Sure but based on ROH data (runs of homozygosity) and the Indian caste structure, it seems like they are far, far closer to the Middle Eastern norm of inbreeding than they are to China or the Middle East.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/11/homozygosity-runs-in-the-family-or-not/#more-7781

Indian homicide rates are rather comparable to rather richer Taiwan (India is a rather corrupt country, though).

Not much compared to outbred Brazil.

Both should have low rates but the middle east higher than China and India.

According to these sources that were cited above,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/oct/13/homicide-rates-country-murder-data

India has higher rates than the Middle East, and China has higher rates than several Middle Eastern countries.

"In any such calculation India really out to have a pretty honkingly huge dose of i."

I didn't explain that the i and o values i used in the first post are *relative* to default levels of inbreeding.

According to hbdchick's blog most agrarian cultures seem to have practised a certain level of cousin-marriage.

The Islamic version of cousin-marriage is *above* that level. The Northern Euro version is *below* that level.

That is what the i and o are meant to represent.

I'm assuming the middle-east had similar forms of cousin-marriage to India and China before the Islamic conquest and an *extra* amount afterwards. The i represents the extra.

It may not be right but the model potentially squares the circle between European, Middle-Eastern and Indian/Chinese levels of violent crime.

If i increased violence half as much as continued civilization reduced it i.e. i = -0.5p then

India and China: 40p
Middle East: 40p – 7p = 33p

In any such calculation India really out to have a pretty honkingly huge dose of i.

"Middle Eastern populations are said to be among the most inbred populations. But they tend to have some of the lowest homicide rates:"

I think the full scope of post-farming history is important here.

Most of the middle east, the Levant, Egypt, and down through Iran to India and China have been civilized for a very long time and much longer than northern Europe.

If the general pattern is civilization leads to pacification over time then i think we should expect those populations in the zone of very long-term high demsity farming civilizations to have very low male-male murder rates as a base.

The muslim conquest created an overlay over part of that zone so if hbdchick's idea is correct we should see a difference between those two parts of the zone i.e. the muslim part of the mid-latitude very long-term civilized zone should be more violent than the non-muslim parts of that same zone – not necessarily more or less violent than northern Europe.

To illustrate

If we assume for the sake of argument the hunter-gatherer violence base was the same everywhere and pacification occurs at the rate of p per century and civilization started around 2000BC
in the Middle East, India and China then all three would have had 26p of pacification before the Islamic conquest.

Since then India and China would have had another 14 p while the Middle-east would have had 14 (p+i) where i is the effect of higher inbreeding.

So
India and China = 40p
Middle East = 40p + 14i

If hbdchick is right then i is negative but if i is negative but still smaller than p then pacification would still *increase* but at a slower rate than India and China.

If i increased violence half as much as continued civilization reduced it i.e. i = -0.5p then

India and China: 40p
Middle East: 40p – 7p = 33p

Both should have low rates but the middle east higher than China and India.

If northern Europe only really started civilization aka high density farming around 1000AD then northern Europe would only have had 10p of pacification and you would expect northern europe to have a much higher male-male violence rate.

However if outbreeding had the effect hbdchick's idea implies on top of the standard pacification process then for northern Europe we get
Northern Europe: 10 (p + o)
where o is the effect of outbreeding.

If o = 0.5p then ten centuries produces 15p of pacification.
If o = p then ten centuries produces 20p of pacification.
If o = 1.5p then ten centuries produces 25p of pacification.
etc

(Also i think the industrial revolution magnified the pacification rate so northern Europe may have had fewer centuries of standard pacification but it was followed by a couple of centuries of magnified pacification.)

###

So only if the effect of higher inbreeding from the muslim conquest had a greater effect on increasing violence than the standard pacification effect had on reducing it would pacification in the middle-east have gone into reverse and even if the violence effect was strong enough to put pacification into reverse it still had 26 centuries of prior pacification to reverse.

sopholl657As I read it the post suggests we can't alter our fate because that would require a change in the evolved psychology of man in advanced nations; selection against homicide was also selection against the ability to think for oneself.

The population of advanced western democracies have been selected to refrain from private violence, and to respect authority. The fall in private violence (homicide) happened before the Enlightenment, so alteration in genetic predisposition rather than popularisation of moral rationality was the cause.

The population are genetically programmed to swallow all precepts handed down from the powers that be, right to the bitter end.

I'm sure hbd chic is still happy to discuss the matter with you at her blog, once you've read the linked posts.

My comments were addressing violence, which is the topic of Peter's post. hbd chick doesn't really address violence in the post she linked to.

I don't understand her point about inbreeding amplifying selection for violence. Al Qaeda might defeat other groups via its members self-sacrificial violence, but within Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden ended up with 20 (known) children by hiding out in caves and houses and avoiding self-sacrificial violence, while young men on the front lines or performing suicide missions generally don't reproduce.

I'm sure hbd chic is still happy to discuss the matter with you at her blog, once you've read the linked posts.

You've brought up an important point about the Middle East. Pinker's explanation ('that the 20th century has seen a “moral Flynn effect, in which an accelerating escalator of reason carried us away from impulses that lead to violence”') would predict vastly more murder there than actually exists.

what i meant by "not necessarily" was that selection for violent behavior still needs to be there — it's not just a matter of inbreeding. the inbreeding amplifies the selection.

If more violent members are sacrificing themselves to help less violent members, wouldn't it dampen the selection and bring down the average level of violence in the family?

again, see pinker on the reliability of homicide rates from different countries (like afghanistan). also, note all the inter-tribal warfare in afghanistan.

Does he argue that contemporary violent crime data on the Middle East is unreliable?

Contemporary violent crime data suggest that Middle Eastern countries have among the lowest murder rates in the world:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/oct/13/homicide-rates-country-murder-data

US State Dept. information suggests the same thing.

Is there data on the amount of violence from inter-tribal warfare in Afghanistan?

@anonymous – "Possibly depends on if they actually spend time with outsiders in a way that brings them into conflict?"

people from other clans/tribes often are (genetic) outsiders — for example, see second druze chart here.

@anonymous – "The data here suggests that Afghanistan's murder rates are lower than countries like Luxembourg, South Korea, Liechtenstein, Taiwan, etc."

again, see pinker on the reliability of homicide rates from different countries (like afghanistan). also, note all the inter-tribal warfare in afghanistan.

@anonymous – "You originally argued that inbreeding necessarily causes greater aggression towards outsiders and violence…."

what i meant by "not necessarily" was that selection for violent behavior still needs to be there — it's not just a matter of inbreeding. the inbreeding amplifies the selection.

my argument is a somewhat long one — a bit long for blog comment — so, please, see more here if you're interested.

The question is why violence has declined. Harpending vs Pinker. Pinker says: “The reason so many violent institutions succumbed within so short a span of time was that the arguments that slew them belong to a coherent philosophy that emerged during the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment. The ideas of thinkers like Hobbes, Spinoza, Descartes, Locke, David Hume, Mary Astell, Kant, Beccaria, Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft, Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton and John Stuart Mill coalesced into a worldview that we can call. Enlightenment humanism.”
Pinker espouses ye olde liberal humanism, which happens to be the dominant western myth (as Peter said 'has the backing of perceived moral authority').

Chris Crawford is the only commenter here who uses his own name, IMO that's because he advances a view that has 'backing of perceived moral authority'.

"more inbreeding=greater inclusive fitness payoffs for those who are more altruistic towards their family members, including being aggressive towards outsiders. thus, more violence in inbred populations."

Possibly depends on if they actually spend time with outsiders in a way that brings them into conflict?

no, you're right. not necessarily. but try telling everyone from the yanomamo to the afghanis that being aggressive towards outsiders is not good for their inclusive fitness.

You originally argued that inbreeding necessarily causes greater aggression towards outsiders and violence:

"more inbreeding=greater inclusive fitness payoffs for those who are more altruistic towards their family members, including being aggressive towards outsiders. thus, more violence in inbred populations."

If it doesn't necessarily cause greater aggression towards outsiders and violence, are you just saying that it correlates with it? Is there data for this? The data here suggests that Afghanistan's murder rates are lower than countries like Luxembourg, South Korea, Liechtenstein, Taiwan, etc.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country

well, as steven pinker pointed out in The Better Angels of Our Nature, some sets of homicide data are probably more reliable than others.

Are you saying contemporary violent crime data is unreliable? All of it, or just from the Middle East?

The US State Dept.'s international travel information seems to corroborate contemporary violent crime data:

http://travel.state.gov/travel/travel_1744.html

It tends to note low levels of violent crime in the Middle East, and warns readers about very high levels of violent crime in sub-Saharan African countries.

also, they've got some pretty severe deterrents to murder in places like saudi arabia (namely gettin' your head chopped off!).

France was guillotining murderers until the late 70s, and publicly guillotining them until the late 30s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_Weidmann

We still execute murderers today, and some would argue that the violent assault, murder, rape, disease, etc. prevalent in prisons today are worse punishments than execution.

@anonymous – "Middle Eastern populations are said to be among the most inbred populations. But they tend to have some of the lowest homicide rates"

well, as steven pinker pointed out in The Better Angels of Our Nature, some sets of homicide data are probably more reliable than others. also, they've got some pretty severe deterrents to murder in places like saudi arabia (namely gettin' your head chopped off!).

what's more interesting to look at, i think, are things like presence/absence and frequency of clan/tribe battles in different countries. they happen with quite a lot of regularity in afghanistan — not so much in england (anymore).

@anonymous – "This shouldn't necessarily include 'being aggressive towards outsiders'. It's easy to see how 'being aggressive towards outsiders' could be bad for inclusive fitness by ruining the family's reputation and each of its members prospects."

no, you're right. not necessarily. but try telling everyone from the yanomamo to the afghanis that being aggressive towards outsiders is not good for their inclusive fitness. (~_^)

thus, more violence in inbred populations.

Middle Eastern populations are said to be among the most inbred populations. But they tend to have some of the lowest homicide rates:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country

more inbreeding=greater inclusive fitness payoffs for those who are more altruistic towards their family members, including being aggressive towards outsiders.

This shouldn't necessarily include "being aggressive towards outsiders". It's easy to see how "being aggressive towards outsiders" could be bad for inclusive fitness by ruining the family's reputation and each of its members prospects.

"…and our beloved hbd* chick (2012)."

awww, shucks! (*^_^*)

i think (obviously! (~_^) ) that the change in mating patterns — from greater to lesser inbreeding — in early medieval nw europe affected this genetic pacification process.

significant differences in the degree of inbreeding vs. outbreeding between populations means the inclusive fitness payoffs are quite different in different populations — more inbreeding=greater inclusive fitness payoffs for those who are more altruistic towards their family members, including being aggressive towards outsiders. thus, more violence in inbred populations. and inbreeding seems to have been drastically reduced in nw europe starting in the early medieval period.

of course, the inbreeding/outbreeding and the state-removing-the-most-violent-from-the-population theories do not have to be mutually exclusive.

If the important decisions, like who gets to go to Harvard and run the country, are being made by WASPs, the decisions aren't made to benefit WASPs as a class.

WASPs don't run places like Harvard, and haven't run them in decades.

I think Peter has well described the kind of behaviour that helps you get ahead as a memebr of the business class, so I don't think I will go for it any further.

Also, well, you're into the face shape stuff, so -

http://www.livescience.com/15798-ceo-face-shape-performance.html
"Corporate leaders with faces that were wide relative to their length — such as Herb Kelleher, the former CEO of Southwest Airlines — tended to lead better-performing companies than CEOs with narrower faces, such as Dick Fuld, the long-faced final CEO of Lehman Brothers, the study found."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-06/afps-awf060412.php

The results of the study confirmed their hypotheses and turned the typical associations with facial width on their head: the more robust looking, wider faced men in the study were more self-sacrificing than other men.
"It was surprising that our predictions were confirmed," reports Dr. Stirrat. "When we mentioned Edinburgh University, our St Andrews participants with wider faces were more cooperative than the other men. When we didn't mention the rivalry, they were less cooperative than other men."

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0046774

Here we study a potential hormonal influence, focusing on the steroid hormone testosterone, which has been shown to play an important role in social behavior. In a double-blind placebo-controlled study, 91 healthy men (24.32±2.73 years) received a transdermal administration of 50 mg of testosterone (n = 46) or a placebo (n = 45). Subsequently, subjects participated in a simple task, in which their payoff depended on the self-reported outcome of a die-roll. Subjects could increase their payoff by lying without fear of being caught. Our results show that testosterone administration substantially decreases lying in men. Self-serving lying occurred in both groups, however, reported payoffs were significantly lower in the testosterone group (p<0.01).

Re. Hsu on the top people, here. He only said CEO's tend to be good at reading people but lack empathy. Earlier this year Hsu fumed about discrimination against applicant Asians at Harvard and Princeton. Here. Boston Brahmins aren't selfishly keeping Asians out, less than a fifth of current Harvard students are of white Christian origins. If the important decisions, like who gets to go to Harvard and run the country, are being made by WASPs, the decisions aren't made to benefit WASPs as a class.

Anyway Hsu mentions the political class as being similar to Williams Syndrome sufferers. Genetic pacification would be like taming, a gene selected for in the taming of wolves "has a human counterpart that has been implicated in Williams syndrome, where it causes exceptional gregariousness." here

See, the discrimination against Asians is due to a universities, like most things, being run by genetically pacified caste with as Hsu cites, a "cocktail party" type personality. Why are WASPs keeping qualified Asians out? Charles Murray says it's because Asians are the new Jews. I think it's because the genetically pacified caste that administrators are drawn from was so receptive to affirmative action arguments, it reduced white admissions in a draconian way. Now they just can't let all the qualified Asians in without having a ridiculously low number of whites at Harvard.

Under the Normans taking a deer would get you blinded and castrated. If psychopaths are the most successful, where does the patholgy come in?

The Upper Class enjoys nothing more than going on safari or gunning down some pheasants.

It's mostly psychopaths at the top, as Steve Hsu says.

From my reading of Nowak, tit for tat can get cooperation going, but with a population operating on a punctilious 'tit for tat' basis, every little mistake initiates cycles of retaliation, and brings the system down.

The state mediates the 'tit for tat', and it can be punctilious indeed, with its laws and bureaucracy. But there's no reason why it necessarily brings the system down. To the contrary, if Peter's ideas about "genetic pacification" are correct, it may be the case that it strengthens the system.

Hunting with dogs is seriously illegal in Britain, except rabbits (classified as vermin). But I know someone who lives for it. He's about 24, seriously overweight, broad faced, doesn't have many teeth, and long term unemployed. (He went to prison for attacking his foreman with a shovel).

Humane societies' style of thinking is similar to the environmental movement. Neither originated as an lower class thing.

Chris, but why is it that those who enjoy killing animals are concentrated in the lower orders of society?

Eh… Why do upper class Brits like fox hunting?

Chris, but why is it that those who enjoy killing animals are concentrated in the lower orders of society?

"Market societies are state societies with literacy, accounting, and law. This record-keeping and punishment allows for reciprocal altruism"

From my reading of Nowak, tit for tat can get cooperation going, but with a population operating on a punctilious 'tit for tat' basis, every little mistake initiates cycles of retaliation, and brings the system down.

The real alteration came about with 'economic man', he was selected (through economic success in a pacified society) for achievement through hopefully trusting all others, and being careful of his reputation for being a person who is trusting.

What do you mean by "trusting all others"?

Market societies are state societies with literacy, accounting, and law. This record-keeping and punishment allows for reciprocal altruism. "Trusting all others" in the sense of expanding kin altruism to everyone in society is not necessary. In fact, a look at Western history suggests that the most economically successful preserve kin altruism among themselves and practice reciprocal altruism with others, while getting others to extend kin altruism to them.

Well, it looks like I'm dishonest, seriously psychologically blocked, and/or a hick, so I'll just mosey on off, mebbe hunt me a rabbit or a 'coon.

Chris, You're from a working class background?

"LIKE innumerable thinkers before him, Fukuyama has confused evolution with a particular idea of progress. His 'theory of development' consists of a set of political ideals – roughly speaking, Anglo-American pieties of the past century or so – masquerading as an explanation of history."

All behaviour is genetic, humans are no more above and beyond nasty selection than carrots are. And modern carrots – like humans – are quite a bit different to the original. 'Orange-coloured carrots appeared in the Netherlands in the 17th century'

You're an orange carrot.

Chris, if you were honest you'd see that no one on Clark's side has ever said that it is "just genetics." The fact that you would put such a notion into words tells me that there is either a serious psychological blockage in your brain or you really are just dishonest. Why do you do that over and over again?

Sean, my own reasons for skepticism regarding the role of genetics in the transformation to civilization are based primarily on my understanding of speciation and my knowledge of history. While it's true that dramatic selection forces can result in rapid genetic change, I see no such dramatic selection forces in human history.

The evidence produced by Mr. Clark and Mr. Harpending is dependent upon a lot of speculation and hand-waving. They do produce some impressive data, but the path from that data to their conclusions involves too many assumptions for my taste.

By the way, I'm just finishing up Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order, which presents a well-developed hypothesis regarding the factors that controlled the development of political order. Interestingly, his discussion of English socio-political history suggests that English society had a big advantage over over countries in the years prior to the Industrial Revolution. In other words, Mr. Fukuyama has come up with an alternate explanation for the Industrial Revolution, in direct competition with Mr. Clark's explanation. All in all, I find Mr. Fukuyama's explanation more convincing. He relies on some speculative assumptions as well, but they strike me as better grounded in historical experience.

The causes of the Industrial Revolution are at least as complicated as the causes of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and look how much controversy the latter issue has generated. Mr. Clark's hypothesis is just too one-dimensional to satisfy my sensibilities. We can be sure that, fifty years from now, we'll have a better grip on the causes on the Industrial Revolution, and the accepted picture will involve many factors at work, not just genetics.

AS Sahlins (2005) puts it: The hunter, one is tempted to say, is "uneconomic man".'

A while back I read an article complaining about salesmen exploiting Aborigines; selling them things like vacuum cleaners on hire purchase though they had no use for them, preferring to sleep in a dry river bed with their dogs.

Cultural memes for farming don't seem able to teach the !Kung to live as farmers, according to Henry Harpending they often can't resist eating all the livestock. But this doesn't mean they're greedy (From google books) "[A]!Kung hunter suppresses his hunger, sharing even meagre kills with others in his camp. Stingy people are despised among the !Kung, and stinginess is very broadly defined; in that culture, virtually all Americans would be considered extremely stingy." Also "While a stingy person is anti-social and irksome, an arrogant person is actually dangerous, since according to the !Kung 'his pride will make him kill someone'. [eg] A boasting hunter who comes into camp announcing: 'I have killed a big animal."

Even pre Pleistocene behaviour was plastic enough for nastiness to be severely curtailed (through the gossip Nowak talks about), but only within the group.

The real alteration came about with 'economic man', he was selected (through economic success in a pacified society) for achievement through hopefully trusting all others, and being careful of his reputation for being a person who is trusting.

We now have an intellectual and economic elite genetically disposed to think a certain way (because that kind of thinking has been the key to success in a market-economy society). Moreover, their reputation for having an optimistic view of what cam be expected from others is their most valuable possession, and they'll not accept anything that might harm it.

IMO that's why the more accomplished people (like you and Unz) are allergic to any genetic arguments which lead us to be less than sanguine. Of course everyone in the advanced western countries thinks like that to some degree, as we have largely descended from the economically successful.

In a sense, that seems like a potent selective pressure for violent behavior…

That is to say, if you have a situation where 1% of the population are criminals and you hire 2% of the population out as constables, then although you may reduce the fitness of the criminal, you are increasing the fitness of the "constables", who you have probably chosen because they are capable of violent behaviour (otherwise they would not be able to deal with criminals, particularly organised criminals, who are more police like themselves and who seem to displace violent criminals over time, as society becomes more civilized, c.f. China, Japan, Italy).

So this is why I am skeptical that police forces and executions decrease the overall proportion of violent tendencies in a population. I think the overall violent tendencies of populations have increased because the peaceful niches have increased in their capacity to support faster than the violent ones, and because a peaceful Dad-ish lifestyle leads to a lot of children.

Ah, but Sean, I left a loophole in my comment! I wrote that we are all fundamentally Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. That is, our cognitive foundations are those of Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. Layered on top of that are:

1. the genetic changes of the last 12,000 years;
2. the cultural memes that modify our behavior;
3. the nurturing that we received as children.

I know a few people for whom these three layers are all but insubstantial. For most people, though, the second and third layers are quite thick.

Chris, if "we are all fundamentally Pleistocene hunter-gatherers." why are you exercised about climate change and environmental issues? (BLUE ISLAND ALMANACK) Surely that kind of thinking would be seriously maladaptive in the Pleistocene. (In the Prisoner's dilemma two rational players would both defect, the recent selection has been for irrational trust). I think you're living proof of what you deny exists: post- Pleistocene selection. And at the societal level where policy is determined, that kind of mindset becomes very common.

Thanks for the link, Harold. I've read through some of the material there and I'm not sure what to think. The writer seems to cover all the bases well, but some of his phrasings induce me to believe that he's got a personal axe to grind. There is certainly plenty of solid information there and I'm going to continue reading it.

Thanks again.

Chris Crawford wrote:

“Let's get really ugly. The homicide rate among blacks in the USA is much higher than the homicide rate among whites. Does this mean that blacks are genetically predisposed to homicide?“

If you are interested in pondering this question, and the genetics of violence in particular, you may be interested in the material linked to on this page:

http://theunsilencedscience.blogspot.com/2011/08/genetics-of-violence.html

A kind of system that seems like it relies on people who are willing to kill "bad people" seems like it would favor the descendants of those who are willing to kill bad people (either directly or by proxy) – let's remember that this is not a selective environment, this is behavior carried out by people, who will require violent traits to carry out the behavior.

Justice is not some abstraction, it is mediated by human beings.

In a sense, that seems like a potent selective pressure for violent behavior…

That is to say, pacifists who could not stomach the murder of murderous criminals, or kill the iniquitous personally (you coward!), those people probably were eliminated or relatively reduced by medieval justice.

Sean, the Gallego anecdote does not address the nature versus nurture issue; we have no way of knowing whether the murderer's behavior was the result of his upbringing or his genes. His mother was a prostitute; are "genes for prostitution" also "genes for homicide"?

The same problem applies to the migration patterns you describe. Are the differences you mention due to genetics or culture? Your observation does not address that distinction.

Unless they were intentionally and systematically putting the innocent to death in order to let the guilty go free, it is difficult to see how miscarriages of justice could have removed the selective effect of the death penalty.

1955: Gerald Albert Gallego, like father like son "Little Geralds (prostitute) mother was no stranger to the lawless life either, having been raised in an extended family that included murderers and child molesters.¦Gerald Armand Gallego never met his father, but he had the old man's temper, and seven convictions (including rape of a 6 year old girl when he was 13) At 32 he had 5 ex wives and outstanding warrants for incest (his daughter), rape, and sodomy. (daughter's friend). He murdered 10 teenage girls.
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England's former elite were pauperised by the Norman conquest, that probably removed much of the chance of getting away with murder for all but the Norman gentry. That part of the US population which was from south East England (ie the new England Puritans) had very low rates of violent crime. Parts of America that got the population (including transported criminals) from the wild fringes of Scotland still tend to be far more violent.

I further reject the notion that homicidal behavior is closely correlated with other criminal behavior. I agree that there is some correlation, but I have seen no evidence to indicate that the correlation is high.

If you aggressively execute people who commit homicide, you may be selecting against stupidity or impulsivity, rather than against criminal behavior per se, unless you execute for non-homicidal criminal behavior as well.

You know, there are some common elements in this argument and the hypothesis that videogames cause kids to be violent in the real world. Genetic factors predispose people to be homicidal; videogames imbue them with homicidal urges. Both hypotheses are plausible, but I am scientifically conservative and do not accept either one because neither one has solid evidence to support it.

Peter, medieval justice was primarily local in feudal England. The local noble heard complaints and acted however he saw fit. Ofttimes his "justice" had a distinctly corrupt odor to it; kiss-ups were treated better than the less fawningly subservient. Over the course of centuries, the king advanced the common law (in this case, "common" meant "universal") as a replacement for feudal law. Even then, the actual application of legal procedures was limited by the availability of the king's circuit court; if the king's judge wasn't due for a few months, the locals might dispense with the formalities and string up the accused.

For the selection effect to function, we don't care how many innocents get killed, so long as the system gets most of the people who are genetically predisposed to violence. And certainly the bloodthirstiness of medieval justice suggests that there was a decent probability of them getting the bad guys. But how large was that probability? We just don't know.

Perhaps our disagreement stems from different readings of history. I just stepped over to my library shelves and found twelve books on the history of criminal law, including volumes on law in ancient Egypt, Athens, and Rome; a couple of books on the treatment of witchcraft in Europe; and a book on trials before the Papal magistrates in late Renaissance Rome. Oh, and there's also a two-volume collection of trials in England from 1500 to 1800. From these readings I've learned that justice was very arbitrary back then. The witchcraft trials clearly showed that social standing had much more to do with the verdict than actual guilt or innocence. If people didn't like you, you were as good as dead.

Accordingly, I have little confidence in the criminal justice system of those days as an effective selection force against homicidal behavior.

I further reject the notion that homicidal behavior is closely correlated with other criminal behavior. I agree that there is some correlation, but I have seen no evidence to indicate that the correlation is high. Appealing to "common sense" about "criminal mentalities" is for pop-psychology buffs, not scholars. Show me some data if you expect me to accept your claims.