Re: Patriotism

From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu Apr 10 2003 - 20:35:30 MDT

  • Next message: Damien Sullivan: "Re: Patriotism"

    Lee Corbin wrote:

    >Charles writes
    >
    >
    >
    >>>What is germane to this discussion is which kind of life is more of
    >>>an ESS (evolutionarily stable strategy). If a nation or a tribe or
    >>>just a group of people is to have a group identity that lasts longer
    >>>than a decade or two, or that outlasts the individual life times of
    >>>its members, then I do not believe that what you call the "northern"
    >>>or I'd call the more modern structures are ESS's. That is one reason
    >>>why poorer peoples from around the world are demographically replacing
    >>>more "modern" ones.
    >>>
    >>>
    >>Possibly. But throughout history areas with dense populations have not
    >>replaced, but depended on immigration. And areas with low density
    >>population have been net exporters of population. This holds with many
    >>different social systems, cultures, limits to sanitation, etc.
    >>
    >>
    >
    >That's extremely interesting. So a corollary would be that urban
    >populations have a lower birth rate than rural populations. Do
    >you know if this is indeed quite general? Happen to know of any
    >references?
    >
    >
    >
    >>So there may be something more basic going on.
    >>
    >>
    >
    >It brings to mind the old theories about crowding (and group
    >selection, which is an incorrect application of group selection
    >by the way).
    >
    >Lee
    >
    >
    >
    >>It would be interesting to know the distribution of
    >>China's population replacement ratios. But from
    >>what I've heard [newspaper factoids] it's again
    >>the country population that is growing and the city
    >>population that is declining.)
    >>
    This is another one of those things I ran across decades ago, so you'd
    have to dig up references yourself. Originally, though, the attribution
    was to diseases, or poisoning or.... well, lots of things. The first
    time I heard someone suppose that it was crowding itself was in a
    Scientific American article on rats and mothering instincts in crowded
    environments. That was probably in the 1970's. I've never seen a good
    study that claimed the results on rats could be generalized, though many
    people have suggested it in a non-scientific context. (I believe it was
    the basis of a fact article and a couple of stories in Analog Science
    Fact->Fiction. No date even to the decade for that though.)

    The first time I ran across it was in reference to the Romans, and
    people were blaming lead water pipes. Seems a bit unlikely as only the
    aristocrats had the lead pipes. OTOH, having crazy aristocrats running
    things made life in the big city ... exciting.



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Apr 10 2003 - 20:44:36 MDT