I proposed this as a non-joke explanation a while back. Thread incoming 1/xhttps://twitter.com/mtpollack/status/1275074760070684676 …
-
-
On the continent of origin everything there is evolutionarily linked - all in an arms race. The intelligent species wants to eat everything to turn it into biomass and the microscopic parasites want to crack that single species' immune system to convert that biomass Result? 4/x
Show this thread -
Equilibrium - strong selective filter on the immune system, strong filter to mix it up with lots of children with slightly different immune systems to beat the parasites. On the other hand, can't beat the animals who you're unintentionally breeding to be wise to your tricks. 5/x
Show this thread -
You can stick in that state until the star engulfs the planet. Contrast with what happens when the species moves to an open continent with seasonal variation. 6/x
Show this thread -
Everyone is familiar with the "cold winters" hypothesis of intelligence and it's almost certainly true to some extent (neanderthals did have larger brains ~1410 cm^3) - that's definitive proof of selective pressure 7/x
Show this thread -
Ok, so go back to that graph - this species moves out of the continent of origin to the one continent it's linked to, spreads out across it, discovers lots of animals with generations of selection for things that aren't "can survive human predation" Result? 8/x
Show this thread -
Rapid conversion of biomass from large herbivores to humans - mass extinctions of large animals of all kinds. Uh oh. That's a lot of biomass of humans that don't have their prior food source. What's the next step? 9/x
Show this thread -
Speculation but probably a huge die off in humans as fewer bands survived - those that branched off earlier and started doing weird stuff like controlling the breeding of prey animals and protecting them as you use them to convert all the uneaten vegetation to milk and meat 10/x
Show this thread -
Now another race is on because that tribe over on the next hill might be successfully protecting sheep from wolves but the men of your tribe are more clever than wolves. Homō hominī lupus est Why stop at taking the sheep though? Why not take the women too? 11/x
Show this thread -
The "total Y chromosome replacement event" stage begins. By the nature of humans evolution for conflict isn't evolving bigger claws or teeth or thicker hide; it's evolving the ability for men to cooperate more successfully in a war band. 12/x
Show this thread -
More successfully than what? The men you're raiding. They're under the same pressure. Bam! The most powerful evolutionary force has been unleashed - the arms race. In this case the arms race is for cooperation. Eventually the land gets filled to capacity of herders 13/x
Show this thread -
Next step? You can pack in people more densely if you switch to agriculture so that's what happens. Agriculture -> cities which are only really possible because of the breeding for cooperation that took place in the earlier steps. 14/x
Show this thread -
Now the selective pressure is different again; selecting for intelligence again, selecting for enough docility to avoid being enough of a danger to others that your genetic line ends via execution, enough cooperation that your city doesn't fall too cohesive raiders 15/x
Show this thread -
That was another big step; cooperate enough with a wide enough group of men that you can produce wealth to produce weapons for armies that are equipped with increasingly sophisticated arms and armor. 16/x
Show this thread -
Without going into the more recent steps this process seems to have bred in the weakness that has allowed what is basically social cancer to grow - cancer in that individual cells are prospering while killing the host. 17/x
Show this thread -
Touching on one point from earlier though. The nodes that are connected via an edge from the second continent are subject to the same broad forces as the Eurasian continent but the process starts many 1000s of years later. Re-introduction has entirely predictable results. 18/x
Show this thread -
Counterfactual speculation - if the graph doesn't have more nodes away from the Eurasian node does the cancer spread? You could make a case that it doesn't - that the evolutionary arms race forces are too strong, constantly pushing to a new local maximum. 19/x
Show this thread -
So maybe the filter is: Life, etc. Need isolated continents Can't have isolated continents that branch off only edge of the origin continent Who knows what the probability of development like that is? Time to start studying exoplanet-plate tectonics 20/x
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.