Cultural exclusivity, genetic diversity & social order in modern developed countries

[Speakpigeon]

Democratic regimes in most developed countries seem to evolve a cultural selection within themselves.

Human beings tend to reproduce according essentially to opportunity and other natural determinations, such as attractiveness and sexual pulsion. There is a natural cultural bias since opportunity tend to increase cultural homogeneity. The French tend to reproduce with the French and the Italians with the Italians. However, historically, the effect of this bias has been reduced by porous borders and walls, migration, war and conquest or colonisation, which all tend to increase the opportunities for miscegenation.

Civilisation seems to increase the scope of this cultural bias. Civilised countries see a complexification of their culture and social life, resulting in an overall increase in the number of cultural communities, all with their own distinctive subculture, and all with a bias against miscegenation.

I am not yet too worried about Jews being Jews and to some extant keeping to themselves, or Catholics being Catholics and to some extant keeping to themselves. I am more worried about the divide between layers of the population characterised by their social status.

In communities small enough, the leakage of gene pools across cultural borders will always outstrip the effect of cultural exclusivity, thus preserving genetic diversity over the long term, except for a small number of isolated communities.

In countries with large populations, say over a few millions, culturally homogeneous communities can get very large, over a million people and up to a few billions for example for the Han in China.

It seems to me that during the last few decades, developed democratic countries have failed to discourage this tendency. Political power seems increasingly to become the preserve of the top layers of society. This has always existed but in modern large countries, there seems to be a long-term stability that was lacking in the past. This is perhaps most apparent n the U.S., but it is probably also largely true in the E.U.

Is cultural exclusivity a problem for genetic diversity in modern developed countries, do you think?

Thank you to contribute your views.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

As the number of individuals increases the likelihood of issues with genetic homogeneity drops quite rapidly. We can't attest to why groups disappeared. However when a small population of humans migrated from Australia to Tasmania and remained isolated for an extended number of generations they lost several mostly social attributes such as control of fire and advanced tool fashioning skills. However the numbers who were isolated are greatly exceeded by the minimum number of persons in any country in today's world. In addition the likelihood that a group would remain socially isolated are becoming quite remote.

That does not mean that extremely small groups of isolated individuals might not be adversely effected. Since, as the Tasmania example shows, group size does play a part in retention of social attributes in human isolated populations across generations. Its the number of generations by the number of people that determine effects.

As for populations of size like the Chinese war - Mongols in 14th century - and commerce - French, English, Dutch, Spanish, Italian trade - are sufficient to infuse diversity over civilization periods of existence. There is also a lot of migration across borders that can be modelled like chemical diffusion.

So, no countries should not generally be concerned with social homogeneity. Even in populations that are rigidly, more or less, forced to adapt to homogeneous behavior those that survive will adapt as did China after Mao's little experiment in eliminating elites. One might say that any top down enforcement will disturb homogeneity.