I proposed this as a non-joke explanation a while back. Thread incoming 1/xhttps://twitter.com/mtpollack/status/1275074760070684676 …
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Mapping Earth as a graph with continents as nodes and connections as edges from a human migration perspective Earth looks like this Africa | Eurasia / \ Americas Oceania 2/x
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Spaceflight capable intelligence is almost certainly not going to develop on the continent of origin; intelligence is an adaptation that has to give fitness returns in exchange for the biological cost of larger brains and slower time to maturity Why not? 3/x
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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
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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
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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
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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
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