ON OUR ‘HIGH TRUST ALTRUISM’ (RISK TAKING PUTS ON FUTURE COOPERATION) (from hbdc

ON OUR ‘HIGH TRUST ALTRUISM’ (RISK TAKING PUTS ON FUTURE COOPERATION)

(from hbdchick)

—“So, again, I think there are at least three things to juggle in our heads here when thinking about possible selection pressures for nepotistic (or or not-so-nepostistic) altruism, all having to do with the “viscosity” of populations:

1) inbreeding,

2) family types, and

3) the forces socio-economic systems exert on familial relationships.

For more than the last thousand years, northwestern european pops have had low inbreeding, small family types, and societal pressures which have pulled apart related individuals (those pressures increased over the period).

Eastern european pops have probably had higher inbreeding for some or all of this time period (although nothing on the scale of the arab world), large family types, and not very many social or economic pressures for family member to disperse.

The mediterranean world, aside from the large islands mentioned by kaser above, has had higher inbreeding rates than northwestern europe (especially southern italy), small family types (at least, small residential family types), but few pressures for close family to separate much”— HBD Chick