Recently there was a discussion on Twitter in regards to group selection, and I made a few comments which I think should be familiar to readers of this weblog, but as I delete all my tweets I will repeat some of the things I said there here.
First, “group selection” brackets a lot of phenomena, but I’ll focus on inter-demic selection. This is basically a situation where you have two groups, and they are competing. Biologically the competition between groups is not sufficient. There needs to be heritable between-group variance, and, the selection on that variance. If you know some biology or evolution this is clear, but if you do not it may sound opaque. What I’m getting at here is that if two groups are genetically exactly the same, group selection by definition cannot happen, because there is no average difference between the groups genetically. In contrast, selection can still occur, because the two groups may still have a lot of heritable variation.
The problem with inter-demic selection is that in many biological circumstances, in particular with humans and other large organisms that migrate and move, is that between-group variance is often very low. Most of the time neighbors are not that genetically distinct. In population genetics, a stylized fact is that very little migration is needed to prevent genetic divergence between groups (1 migrant per generation).
So when biologists express skepticism of group selection, in humans or any organism that’s not highly partitioned, this is why. Readers of this weblog surely know that Fst in Central Germany during the Neolithic was ~0.10 between hunter-gatherers and farmers. This is about the Fst between modern Northern Europeans and Chinese. So a great opportunity for group selection, right? The problem is that 90% of the variance is still not partitioned between groups, so you need very strong group-level selection for this to make a difference.
One of the insights of ancient DNA is that the rise of agriculture and mass settled societies has resulted in a collapse of genetic variation between groups. There is just way more gene-flow as sharp distinctions collapsed during the Holocene. If biological group selection did occur in humans, it was much more likely during the Pleistocene, where marriage networks seemed more viscous.
But, and there is a but, this does not mean that cultural group selection may not be ubiquitous during the Holocene. The reason goes back to the variation: cultures can vary mostly between groups, rather than within them. That means group selection has a lot of “heritable variation” to work with in this case. For example, linguistic variation is mostly between groups, not within them. The rise of shibboleths and various markers can cause sharp differences quickly and they can be quite permanent in a life history scale (e.g., scarification).
Was cultural group selection stronger or weaker during the Pleistocene or Holocene? My intuition is that the more rapid pace of cultural evolution over time tracks stronger and intensifying inter-group competition. In other words, group selection increased, at least initially. Peter Turchin argues that warfare was most extreme during the Neolithic, not the period after or before. Perhaps this is when inter-group violence was most extreme?
A question that will fully illustrate my ignorance…
Readers of this weblog surely know that Fst in Central Germany during the Neolithic was ~0.10 between hunter-gatherers and farmers. This is about the Fst between modern Northern Europeans and Chinese. So a great opportunity for group selection, right? The problem is that 90% of the variance is still not partitioned between groups, so you need very strong group-level selection for this to make a difference.
Doesn’t this assume that all variation, all parts of the variance, are of equal importance? If the 10% that is different includes substantially better night vision (pulling an example out of my …) and in the environment that the two groups inhabit, night vision is very useful, wouldn’t that mean that the group with the allele in question would fare much better (and wouldn’t that appear to be group-level selection?)? Or is the setup just described equivalent to strong group-level selection? And if I just don’t understand the terminology, please point me to an explanation that is not esp. technical or long (for I am a bear of very little brain).
mp, group traits should be group level. night vision is really just an indiv level trait that’s differently partitioned. it will probably spread really quickly.
re: group cultural traits, it makes sense insofar as imagine group practices which distinguish two groups. selection is for a trait that can only be understood as a group phenomenon (imagine the way in which war-groups are led?)
Both biological and cultural selection had a peak from late Mesolithic to Early Iron Age.
The reason is, in part, that there was higher population density and mobility created, while at the same time the operating units were still fairly small and consisted primarily of a closely related kin group. These clan based societies could evolve rapidly, both biologically and culturally, and by outcompeting their neighbours spread the innovations, if those were more successful.
With state structures the cultural evolution kept its pace, while the biological began to lag behind, because the nature of warfare, social competition and profit from (offspring vs. prestige and wealth alone) it changed.
In the pre-state Neolithic and metal ages, the situation was ideal for group selection, because the main operating unit was a clan of related males and because of the new mobility they could spread their genes and culture quickly.
This also meant that individual sacrifices of group members could lead to the direct biological success of the genetic relative. This is evident from the star-like expansions of yDNA haplogroups, proving to us, in the case of group competition, which side was the winning one and how it was done – sometimes by accepting foreign males on a lower rate, sometimes by accepting only fertile young women and sometims accepting no locals in the own expanding group.
In state societies extraordinary individuals and sacrifices don’t pay off any more biologically. Its just individuals which disappear, while the culture might spread, but their genes not.
In an extreme case scenario this might even lead to a society and culture which spreads by consuming its own population genetic potential and therefore burning alive.
That’s why I would never base models of group selection on modern settings, but rather look at the ancient DNA record, when it still worked. The main factor for group selection was always warfare in a premodern context.
Without group selection the human species is, in my opinion, not even explainable and Homo sapiens started already as a competitive species. Because the altruistic behaviour needs to pay off genetically and it can only pay off, if there is collective punishment and kin selection in favour of it. There are models which try to explain it by reciprocal advantages between individuals alone. But then its this reciprocal advantage which got cultivated, also by excluding individuals not participating and those not belonging to the helpful network, which again shows us an element of group selection at work to protect the reciprocal behaviour from abuse.
If only individuals would have been the agents of gene and meme flow, the whole human biological evolution would have been different and for sure much slower. Because this would have meant that single individuals would have needed to establish complicated elements of biologial and cultural development over and over again in a new group, which were already present in their own. To transplant the complete package is far quicker and more effective.
The reality was that the group which had the advantages either eliminated the competing ones and used the resources, or eliminated the resitance by force or peacefully in negotiations, and mixing, as a group, with the other, therefore pulling it, as a whole, in the same direction or giving it, quickly, “all updates”.
In a way the term “group selection” is from the Darwinian point of view an oxymoron, because the biological selection always operates, in the end, on individuals, even just on their DNA. However, I would envision it differently: What is the advantage a human has relative to a chimpanzee if both being thrown naked and alone into the tropical jungle?
Humans have none in such a situation. Similarly, what was the advantage Homo sapiens had, individually, in competition with a Neandertal? Again, approaching zero I would assume.
But if 1000 humans with an evolved culture and 1000 chimpanzees try to colonise the tropical forests, I would still bet on humans, because they operate more effectively in a group.
The same applies to Hominid competition, because the group selection operates with advantages not the single individual creates on its own, but the group he is living with as a whole. If this group is more effective, he and his genome have an advantage over the individuals from another group, even those which might be, individually, superiour in some competitive settings.
In an ideal case scenario, like in the Neolithic, biological and cultural evolution being interlocked. The individuals being selected which make the group stronger, the success of the group spreads their genes and so on. By this humans being created, which, on average, are more successful operating as a group, but probably also have greater problems, on average again, to face challenges on their own. Like if being thrown into the next best forest alone.
Therefore group selection spreads different genetic traits, than sheer individual selection would, with those adapted to the successful culture. This also means there can be a problem if either:
– the individual adapted to the effective culture being left alone or misguided once the culture doesn’t work for it anymore
– the otherwise effective culture doesn’t take care of the human capital it needs to shine.
Both problems mainly arose with larger communities of unrelated people and states, or in case of state collapse, respectively.
It always remains individual selection, but the human groups create different environments in itself and the success or failure of the group as a whole determines the success and failure, to a large degree, of the humans composing it. Like the strongest warrior couldn’t help himself, in the face of his group’s utter defeat, to use a simple example. Individually, he might be superiour to all his opponents, but coming from the wrong group, surrounded by 1000 foes, his fate was determined. And that’s how it always was, especially in the social human species.
It could also go in the opposite direction, like a weak male relative of a strong clan. On his own, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself or to successfully procreate, but because his brothers and cousins protect and support him, he could and his lineage lived on, at least if the next generation was in better shape.
I know this is a different point of view on what group selection can mean, but that’s what it is really about. And this also explains why some recent studies pointed to the fact, that for some world regions allels which are supposed to be adaptive, for the given region, are not widespread. And the main reason for this is that recent migrations brought different allels as a complete package, not necessarily because the single allel was advantageous, but the complete cultural-genetic package was at the time of the migration. The spread of disadvantageous genes, for a given environment and habitat, is primarily explainable by transregional migrations and group selection in the human sphere.
I think the multi-level approach on this problems work the best, with one level being interconnected with the next. In the same way, if these interlocked levels being disturbed, they don’t work as good or not at all any more and need, in theory, to adapt, until a new equilibrium being achieved in an ideal scenario. Therefore any change in the culture resonates with the biological selection and vice versa.
I want to a add an example of great historical significance for how biological and cultural selection and evolution could interact by comparing Ancient Rome with the Germanic tribals. I will assume for the scenario that both started on roughly equal terms concerning their biologial and cultural qualities for warfare.
Let’s start with the Germanic tribals situation:
A young warrior could go on campaign, usually with his brothers and cousins, but in any case for the most time with closely related kin. The campaigns were usually seasonal, so relatively short, and they moved quickly, not staying anywhere for too long in camps. This is important, because it reduces the chance of getting and dying from diseases.
When his party won, he got booty and prestige, this increased his chances of getting a good wife, sometimes even more than one, either as a regular wife or with concubines and slaves. So he personally increased his reproductive success by being a good warrior, but also the one of his brothers, cousins and close kin. So even if he died, he did not die in vain, as long as his king group survived and probably even profited from it. Many sons were good for his prestige and power too, he could gain influence and respect by having good sons. If he had too many children to feed them all, the young could form a band and try their luck. This dynamic would have even further increased the trend as a whole.
This made the whole group, over time, even more warlike and capable, it kept up a warrior spirit, the necessary genes and culture, an cultivated it. Basically, this was a good trend, which made the Germanic tribes, over time, more and more competitive.
Now lets compare the situation for a Roman or generally Italic warrior:
The Romans started to become obsessed with wealth and prestige, and this led to a limitation of children per family, because they didn’t wanted to split the families fortune, and it would have been also a shame to send children out to care for themselves, even though they had so many opportunities and provinces. The education was long, the price for the cursus honorum for upper class even higher. Women started to prefer to live in luxury and don’t wanted to bother themselves with family and children as much any more.
But even worse, the situation was bad for the Roman soldier as soon as the army became a standing one. His duty and campaigns were long, the food often bad, the soliders lived closely together, packed in small tents and rooms, diseases spread, pandemics hit them regularly and very hard.
Also, the soldiers fought for the state, not for their kin group, their kin had no direct advantage of significance if they were brave soldiers, but even they themselves and their survival suffered, being sent to the other end of the Roman world. Roman soldiers were actually discouraged from founding families while being in duty, marriage was prohibited, taking the wives with them, into the camp, was prohibited. Even relationships with slave women and concubines were discouraged and hard to manage, especially if they were constantly on the move.
Instead they were more often inclined to use prostitutes for their sexual satisfaction, which in turn even increased the spread of diseases.
Now the Romans were not stupid, so the military service, from which they had little to profit, especially the lower ranks, went out of favour for many Romans, which preferred to use, once again, wealth to pay others for doing what their ancestor did themselves, to defend the Roman state.
By summing it up, if having two good lineages of warriors, one Germanic, one Roman, chances were very high that the Germanic would have in two centuries multiplied many times, whereas the Roman either didn’t survive at all, or barely so, especially in its original function.
This had an effect on the Roman state and society as a whole, since its cultural and biological potential for raising good soldiers was on decline, for many generations.
Just to point it out, the period of a regular service for a Roman legionary was about 16-25 years (!). So many went to the legion as boys and came back as middle aged, even old men, often scarred or crippled, not necessarily particularly rich or successful, probably even with a diseases they caught in a garrison or on campaign.
At some point the Roman political and military leadership knew this, and the tribal foederati warriors didn’t accept the strict rules of the professional army anyway. So they began to ease restrictions on marriage and women in the garrisons, but only slowly and the whole culture and societal system never changed to really improve the situation significantly, even less so in comparison to the Germanic or Slavic tribal warriors.
Because of the long military service, the birth rates sunk drastically, especially for those born conceived in wedlock and therefore being full Roman citizens, and supposed to be the next generation of legionaries.
This was the Lex Iulia et Papia, but this law made the situation even worse, by directly prohibiting to marry in active duty and take the women on campaign or in the garrison. So Augustus made a grave mistake in this respect. It was good for the professional spirit and effectiveness of the army, but it was a not sustainable cultural invention. You can’t profit from one generation by destroying the next, without ruining the state and people on the long run. But that’s exactly what the Romans did.
Its not the soldiers had no families at all necessarily, but instead of encouraging their best soldiers to get more children, the state demanded from them to wait for the end of the active duty, in theory, which meant:
– many which would normally have founded regular families never get one, because they died before
– those which managed to marry after duty would have get less children than otherwise
– the ones having an “inofficial” family might not care as much, and in the case of their death the situation of this concubines in the civil towns would have been desperate, so not really a good case for a family tradition in any case.
When the ban was lifted, it was much too late, but in fact many reasons worked against the Roman base for military prowess, both biologically and culturally. So at the end Rome could only be defended by foreign mercenaries and foederati, and these decided at some day that they rather work for themselves and don’t need a Roman overhead at all.
This is, in my opinion, absolutely a case of group selection on different levels at work, and the Roman state and culture simply failed to cultivate a spirit and social base for its own defense.
Even with, just assume it for now, the same starting point for the individual potential, the Romans at first had an advantage, when they were expanding. But then the costs of keeping the state up, a luxurious and developed culture, while not caring for the biological and socio-cultural fundaments of its power and wealth, led to a downward spiral.
On the contrary the Germanics were at first disadvanted, because of their lower cultural level, but they had a sustainable and even constantly improving cultural base, which grew with the Roman competitor, learned from it, but never jeopardised its fundaments by ruining its families and fertility, or the selection in favour of brave and virtuous behaviour.
Individually, the Roman and Germanic warrior, respectively, made no choice, they might have had the same level for a fight and in individual competition, but the different trajectories of their respective culture and people led them in very different directions.
A culture burning its genetic human capital can win on the short run, but eventually it has to come back to a sustainable strategy, or it will lose against other competitors, even though these might be culturally or even biologically not superiour at all.
Then both the people and the culture will lose, because one can’t survive without the other on the long run.
The Roman leaders tried to intervene, first in wrong and half-hearted ways. Like Augustus, one of his biggest mistakes ever made. The next move was to make ever more inhabitants of the Roman Empire “Roman citizens”, but this was always just a short term solution too, because not just that the original Roman’s people numbers plummeted, but the new citizens too followed largely the same path into oblivion, once adopting the same lifestyle.
So while early Rome could replenish and raise whole armies within months after the defeats by Hannibal, at the end of the empire they couldn’t even single new legions any more. Because the people were gone and those remaining unwilling. With every dead soldier lineages both a genetic, as well as a socio-cultural asset being lost to the population and culture. One by one, this is a losing game if they can’t be replaced.
These were really two long term strategies of group selection at work, and the advantages of a complex state which is not taking care of its social and biological fundaments will always melt away, over time, from one generation to the next, until even the former cultural superiority, which was there at some point to start it, will be no more as well.
One has not to look at Rome alone, but there are plenty of other examples, starting already with the earliest states in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
I think the Chinese constellation is the best, because they have little direct competitors left in their central region and form one big, fairly homogeneous block. The only thing they needed was inspiration, new impulses, to develop a more creative and innovative culture, because they just got stuck in their own success.
The Chinese population was even in antiquity so huge and homogeneous, that it could actually “swallow” new commpetitors and even conquerors without taking too much damage.
Sumer, was not like that, Egypt neither, Rome not, Persia not, the modern Western states won’t be as well.
Humans are a social species. If a diseases comes up and one dies, the other not, this is strict individual selection. But many other selective trends are caused by the interplay of cultural with biological mechanisms and these lead directly to group selection. Because individuals have advantages and disadvantages inside their group and with their group, not on their own.
Whether a specific individual genetic profile being successful or not, putting diseases and defects aside, as well as strictly (natural) environmental adaptations, being determined to a very large degree by the social unit, the culture and society one is living in. The very same genetic profile might help one group more and damage another, or being successful biologically in one, but a failure in another cultural group.
I think that is being explored far to less. One interesting example is rs53576:
https://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs53576
The American side prefer to puts it in a negative, even “defect-like” category, yet its extremely common in East Asians. Looking at the description at SNPedia, its quite obvious why:
“Optimistic and empathetic; handle stress well”
But, even though this can be questioned, I know its just hypothetical and no single SNP is likely to be that important, but let’s just assume for a thought experiment the positive side has also a negative counterpart. Like lack of realism and social dependence on other and their behaviour, as well as a too lenient and less goal oriented parenting style. Just a thought, but it might point to how the same genetic variation and phenotypical trait could be seen differently under different value systems and in different contexts.
Things like these too might point to different trajectories of groups as a whole, even though its just a difference in frequency, since the allels, all of them, are present in all populations at fairly high percentages.
Re; neolithic being most extreme in terms of violence, hmm…. what seems likely based on the following paper is that “war bands” decrease in relative size due to scaling relationships – https://www.pnas.org/content/114/52/E11101 –
“Our results suggest that, as P(opulation) increases, W(ar Group Size) also increases following the proposed power law relationship between P and W and that W(ar Group)/P(opulation) declines as expected. Hence, there is a scaled positive log–log sublinear relationship between group population and war group size, where the proportion of war group size to population declines with growing population and complexity. However, there is no difference in DCI (demographic conflict investment) between small-scale societies observed during times of conflict and contemporary or recent state-level societies preparing for or engaged in active conflict.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171211152817.htm / https://www.inverse.com/article/39263-war-groups-are-humans-history-more-less-violent – “Specifically, the researchers show that the larger the population of a society, the smaller its war group size, proportionally — which means fewer casualties in a conflict.”
The researchers looked at scaling, not percentages or proportions, as a reflection of the realities of warfare. As population size goes up and societies form into states, Oka said, the military becomes proportionally smaller, more nimble and more specialized. A small-scale society can have 40 percent of its population committed to fighting, for example, but “it’s just economically impossible for a state-level society with, let’s say, 10 million people to have an army that is 4 million strong,” Oka said. “It’s logistically inconceivable.”
This is bit different from neolithic being highest violence, really, “low population periods were most violent” idea. There isn’t really a point in their model where forager groups are too small to maintain war groups at all. Under that model its all just linear (proportion of conflict casualities would be expected to be lower in neolithic, etc).
Large groups can maintain relatively small armies in proportion to the population which still win; conversely the large scale divisions of economic labour that make large societies possible also inhibit them from mobilizing very large amounts of population. Irrespective of subsistence methods.
….
This may or may not tell us much as we think about inter-group violence though; we’d need to know what proportion of deaths occur from violent gangs *within* large scale societies to boot (murder and vendetta and so on). It seems likely this would decrease in larger scale societies, but not certain.
Its important to go back to the beginnings, to primitive warfare, which consisted mainly of skirmishes with long range weapons, as well as traps and surprise attacks, or larger alliances against one group, all resulting in massacres which largely exterminated the opposing group. These extreme situations happened often enough, in preneolithic times, but probably not as often, also because the stakes were usually not that high to risk many wounded and dead males, to risk losing. So the hunter gatherer bands were ready to rage genocidal wars, if getting the opportunity or if the stakes were higher, like for excellent hunting grounds, but usually they backed off from extreme war scenarios.
So hand to hand combat in close formations was really, really exceptional in these times.
But that’s exactly what was changing from Neolithic to Metal Ages. And didn’t just in Europe, because some of the Bantu expansions, and the Zulu empire in particular, are also based on this next step of military evolution.
Larger groups, larger alliances, with more sophisticated weapons, a high warrior ethos and moral, fanatism and the readiness to close ranks and move into close quarter combat, which is the most extreme situation male warriors can be. They face an opponent directly, very physically, which want to hurt, to cut, to smack them, to mutilate and kill them and his kin. This is one of the most extreme thinkable situations to put a male into.
To make your group more effective in this, you need new tools, new customs and even a new breed of strong and disciplined warriors.
Prestate, but higher level tribal societies of this kind invested a huge portion of their lifetime, their evolutionary and economic potential, into the preparation and execution of war.
Yet I don’t agree with Oka that states couldn’t do that, they could and did it. The idea of such large armies being economically and logistically impossible to raise, percentage wise, is erroneous. It was just not the usual case and this can be explained.
Because usually they don’t need to and a large portion of their superiority comes from specialisation and surplus production. There is simply a fairly large portion of the male population which might be good for other tasks, but not good for fighting and there is a small percentage of highly specialised warriors, which, under normal circumstances, can deal with opposing hostile forces, because of their military superiority.
However, this comes at the cost of an ever more specialised armed force, and with a large portion of the “civil population” becoming less and less trained and capable of effective warfare. So families, lineages, sometimes even whole clans and villages being the preferred recruitment ground, in particular for higher level officers and highly trained combat soldiers.
In the Roman situation this segment of the Roman society was constantly shrinking, from early Republican times, to high Imperial times, when it probably was around 0,5-1 percent of the total population. This is of course almost nothing in comparison to the percentages any much smaller scaled Germanic or Slavic tribal group would usually train and field.
But since the Roman population was so large, and the military so effective, this worked out for the first decades of the Empire. But because of the demographic exhaustion and negative selection inside of the Roman society, any loss of a highly trained military unit could result in a permanent loss of manpower.
They couldn’t replace the best officers and soldiers they had, once they were fallen in combat or died because of diseases. The lineages were gone, and the general population lacked, more and more, the genetic and cultural qualities for a new recruitment on the same level.
The same can be applied to the modern USA, which field about 0,4 percent of the total population and they too have a tradition of military service running in families. The average Taliban Pashtu or Somali Islamist fighter might be not as effective, but they are still much more effective than the average American male without military training and experience.
For Romans we can even compare the average Germanic tribal warrior with the average Roman and the specialised soldier. There are traits which are combined genetic and environmental, like height, bone robustness and strength of muscle markers as indicators. Going by that, the professional elite Roman soldier was certainly on par, the average Roman citizen was not.
If the Roman society, with such a brittle demographic base for its effective military, lost complete armies for, in the greater scheme, useless civil wars, it was different from Germanic tribal wars, even if one tribe was exterminated. The winning side was winning demographic potential, could multiply its numbers, recover its losses quickly. Whereas the Roman civil war just resulted in valuable socio-biological potential being wasted, completely lost for the next campaign, without any chance of recovery or replacement any time soon, because the society itself became dysfunctional.
“This may or may not tell us much as we think about inter-group violence though; we’d need to know what proportion of deaths occur from violent gangs *within* large scale societies to boot (murder and vendetta and so on). It seems likely this would decrease in larger scale societies, but not certain.”
It only decreases with “Civilisation” and “taxation”, the latter in the widest sense of the word, when no longer clan chiefs determine what happens, but an upper class which might be more interested in gaining profits from exploiting the defeated, or integrating them in their sphere of influence, rather than exterminating it. This is certainly more humane and economically reasonable, but at the same time it ruins the group oriented selection. Because the soldiers of this lord might just die and being paid, but whatever happens to them, their advantage for a successful campaign are nowhere near as great as for a clam warrior. And in many cases those staying at home or dodging military service, for whatever reasons, might come out as the real winners before those risking their lifes in battle.
Now some might say this is even not that bad, because it makes people more peaceful and that’s it, but that’s not necessarily the case. Because for a disciplined warrior to face enemies in close quarter combat, to stay his ground in a group and risk his life, its a lot about sacrifice and idealism too. And if the selective trend works against this traits, this also means that a population and culture, slowly but steadily, being dismantled from the culture and genes which favour altruism, idealism, decency and the positive social behaviour.
Because these traits, genetically and culturally, come with a cost, which has to pay off. If individuals which don’t have it, do as good or even better, a culture and population as a whole might deteriorate.
The Roman Republicans had a state, they had a civilisation, but they still raised, in a situation of need, large scale armies from scratch. So its not like states can’t do it, but they have a tendency to act economically, which means to reduce army size. Also for the political class, because a large body of trained and armed men is a potential threat. Like in Rome a large portion of the military threats, even some of the worst for its leadres, came not from outside, but from inside the state.
At the same time selecting, training and equipping a large portion of the males for military service, without a reason, would be an unnecessary economic burden, even if a state would be able to shoulder it. It would take away a lot of the advantages “civilised life” can offer, especially with the division of labour, highly specialised societal segments and surplus production.
The Germanics were more effective smaller scale war machines on a high level, but when they did overtake the state, they couldn’t catch up with the specialisation needed to run it effectively. This resulted in a downfall of the Empire’s provinces and in a dependence of the Germanic warlords from Roman specialists. Its quite telling that most of the first written Germanic law codes came from Roman or at least Roman educated specialists.
@Obs, I, uh, mostly don’t disagree with that; I take Oka’s statement to mean mostly “Can’t do so in the long term because it is unsustainable” (either they’ll break economically or they’ll be killed off by an equally large force), and only partly about sheer logistical impossibility.
Re; Rome and Germanic tribes, I don’t wanna get into the precise kind of levels of mobilization between them, because it seems kind of hard to be precise, and will leave alone the “dysgenic” speculations of genetic and cultural change within each society (about which we can know very little, really), but the general point seems reasonable.
At my limited level of knowledge it does seem like you can have these situations through history where large powers often don’t field that large an army, due to the sort of forces Oka’s model would allow – partly because of no need (they can overwhelm smaller enemies or threaten to), partly because the population is reduced to subsistance and can’t afford the tax, partly because as you say the rulers’ fear standing armies and in the Roman case with a tradition of military strongmen, every general who wants to be “Imperator instead of the Imperator” to paraphrase Iznogoud would say. And this is a fragile state of affairs.
And then a lot of smaller peoples who tend to field more of their male population can “get it together” in an alliance of the tribes and its actually a relatively even match.
Particularly, if, as seems to have been the case with the Migration Period, they tended to be pretty open to recruitment of both other “barbarian” peoples, and the “Roman” population (there seems to be a lot of archaeological indications of cross-ethnic identity switching in the migration period of Anglo-Saxon settlement, and the adna samples we find from Migration Era graves I think have tended to have a lot of a mix of often far flung people, though often quite structured in grave customs and family groups).
The conquest of China by “The Eight Banners” being perhaps another example of this phenomenon (though in that instance, with a more enduring political force towards political unification).
So the hunter gatherer bands were ready to rage genocidal wars, if getting the opportunity or if the stakes were higher, like for excellent hunting grounds, but usually they backed off from extreme war scenarios.
So hand to hand combat in close formations was really, really exceptional in these times.
But that’s exactly what was changing from Neolithic to Metal Ages. And didn’t just in Europe, because some of the Bantu expansions, and the Zulu empire in particular, are also based on this next step of military evolution.
Aren’t you skipping over many centuries?
“@Obs, I, uh, mostly don’t disagree with that; I take Oka’s statement to mean mostly “Can’t do so in the long term because it is unsustainable” (either they’ll break economically or they’ll be killed off by an equally large force), and only partly about sheer logistical impossibility.”
The main problem is indeed caused by the distinction of a draft/tribal/national/citizen army and a standing professional army. A state can afford to raise an army, but not to keep it a standing army of that size. But neither do the tribals. Most of the tribals, even their warriors and warrior kings, are not a standing, let alone garrisoned army. Even if they are caste of warriors, they usually live dispersed, on their lands. To keep up a standing, highly trained, best equipped, well fed and garrisoned army for prolonged times, even in areas far away from all centres, is a huge effort of course.
So the main problem is that a highly professional, standing army costs much more than a similar sized army which would be trained regularly, but only called to arms from their homes in case of a need.
Such a call to arms in itself is a big task for any state to manage, and therefore would be only done in a case in which the necessity being recognised. But since the professional army works so well, the longer it suffices, the less efforts being made to militarise the rest of the society, also because of the political and stability reasons mentioned.
And once the need would arise, in a desperate situation, in many cases it was simply too late for the respective state to start with the recruitment and training. When the draft army would have been ready, things were decided quite often already.
“will leave alone the “dysgenic” speculations of genetic and cultural change within each society (about which we can know very little, really)”
We know enough, and genetically, the dysgenic trends will be proven, unless there is no research on the issue or the results being manipulated, proven within the next ten years, no doubt about that. The results might be presented in a different way, like a neutral shift took place, but that’s not the case.
There are hard facts we know for both the genetic and the cultural side. For the genetics we have two elements:
– a significant change in the skeletal material and population as a whole. This is not just a factor for Europe, we know the trained half- or fully professional warriors from the Near East some thousand years earlier. Even physically, these were not average males for the respective population.
But even more important:
– the archaeological and historical accounts of “disappearing” Roman families, which had low bith rates, surviving offspring for generations, with whole gentes from both the upper and middle class, during the Roman history. They simply died out and disappeared, as did whole military cultures, settlements and units. And no, they didn’t just “disperse”, this was, at least in part, an “extinction event”.
The specialisation of a large social unit can be seen from a different perspective, as if within on general population and culture, different subpopulations and subcultures emerge. And those subpopulations and subcultures which formed the Roman backbone were washed away or at least thinned out to a point, from which they couldn’t keep things together any more.
Not every gentes, not every lineage was easy to replace while keeping the Roman state on the same level as it was with them.
Culturally, we have again the historical and archaeological accounts, the decadence which spread in the Roman society was best described by Roman authors themselves and the fall in quality standards, for example in art, for minting or military equipement, was evident long before some of the supposed other big shifts happened. It was downward spirale soon after the Empire started. Actually, at its height it shined so bright, but this was achieved by concuming the own cultural and genetic resources, it was unsustainable.
“And then a lot of smaller peoples who tend to field more of their male population can “get it together” in an alliance of the tribes and its actually a relatively even match.”
I looked up the Roman military actions at their European border with the Germanics and Sarmatians, as well as other “Barbarians” they were facing in the North. The Roman army was thinned out, either because of a civil war, or because of a war in the East, and the tribes to the North thought this is a great opportunity to take booty, probably even grab some land and show the neighbours how proud and brave they are.
“The fun” lasted as long as the Romans gathered a sizeable army and marched on them. Usually there wasn’t even a big battle, and if there was one, as a rule, the Romans won. But, unless they had major allies in the North, they weren’t able to completely destroy the enemy, which evaded them – most of the reproductive units, the “civil life” of the tribals was mobile enough and could hide with the next relatives, in a big forest or behind the next mountain chain. The Romans had no resources or motivation to stay out in the open for too long, so there were peace negotiations and everything calmed down. Until the next tribal leader needed a success story, got pushed by its neighbours, or the Romans thinned out their garrisons again.
In practise, this was largely a cat-and-mouse game in which the Romans had zero to win, but everything to lose. So the tribals could lose one battle after another, probably some tribes got destroyed in the course of this, but the Romans were never allowed to really show a weakness, or otherwise hell would break lose and again, their best armies became, over time, irreplaceable as socio-cultural units, as a subcultural and subpopulation of the Roman empire. A complete disaster could not be handled, because of its weak foundations.
“Particularly, if, as seems to have been the case with the Migration Period, they tended to be pretty open to recruitment of both other “barbarian” peoples, and the “Roman” population (there seems to be a lot of archaeological indications of cross-ethnic identity switching in the migration period of Anglo-Saxon settlement, and the adna samples we find from Migration Era graves I think have tended to have a lot of a mix of often far flung people, though often quite structured in grave customs and family groups).”
Again we just have to look into the historical records to know that a large portion of the Gothic army consisted, especially in their fight against the much hated Byzantines, of (former) Roman citizens.
We know this because historians noted that when the Ostrogoths got defeated by the Byzantines in the battle of Taginae, the Byzantine army showed no mercy with all the Romans which fought on the Gothic side. They were killed on the spot, even after having surrendered their weapons. And a main motive for the run towards both Germanic warlords in the West, and later Arabs and Turkic in the East, was to evade the ever increasing taxation and suppression by the desintegrating state, which fought for its existence.
I think how the Ostrogoths did “conquer Rome” exemplary:
“Rome fell when the Isaurian soldiers guarding the gates secretly invited Totila to take the city. Like many in the imperial army, they had not been paid in months and did not think it wise to risk their lives against a general who had thus far won every battle he engaged in. As with the other conquered cities, Totila treated the Romans with the utmost kindness and respect and, having now conquered the symbolic seat of Roman power in Italy, he opened communications with Constantinople to offer peace.”
https://www.ancient.eu/Totila/
(recommended article by the way)
A “professional army” needs to be paid. They didn’t fought for “their fatherland” or any ideal any more, but just for money and, fighting for kin and ideals is usually a better motivation than fighting for money. Money can buy a Plutocracy hands, but no hearts. Paid propaganda can, but with every failure, this too will sound more dull.
I wouldn’t be too quick with “changing identities”, because many such tribal alliances were just that, alliances by different clans and tribes, but they didn’t fuse, at least not initially. That doesn’t mean they fused over generations, but not necessarily immediately. They were just united by common interests and a common leader, usually.
@iffen:
“Aren’t you skipping over many centuries?”
Because of what? Because of hand to hand battle or the Bantus?
The hand to hand battle did increase in late Neolithic and Copper Age significantly, this is evident from the archaeological record and the wounds inflicted on the dead. The battle at Tollense was won mostly by archers, presumably, but only because it was a trap in all likelihood. The army as it appears there was already fully equipped for full scale close quarter combat like later Bronze and Iron Age armies elsewhere.
The Bantu and Zulu expansion happened later, but it repeated, in some respects, elements of what was happening in Europe before. Its the same principle and I just mention to
– prove it happened in different world regions
– because we have some historical accounts for the transition we don’t have from Europe, where we have archaeological remains only.
“Shaka is credited with introducing a new variant of the traditional weapon, demoting the long, spindly throwing spear in favour of a heavy-bladed, short-shafted stabbing spear. He is also said to have introduced a larger, heavier cowhide shield (isihlangu), and trained his forces to thus close with the enemy in more effective hand-to-hand combat. The throwing spear was not discarded, but standardised like the stabbing implement and carried as a missile weapon, typically discharged at the foe, before close contact. These weapons changes integrated with and facilitated an aggressive mobility and tactical organisation.[3]
As weapons, the Zulu warrior carried the iklwa stabbing spear (losing one could result in execution) and a club or cudgel fashioned from dense hardwood known in Zulu as the iwisa, usually called the knobkerrie or knobkerry English and knopkierie in Afrikaans, for beating an enemy in the manner of a mace. Zulu officers often carried the half-moon-shaped Zulu ax, but this weapon was more of a symbol to show their rank. The iklwa – so named because of the sucking sound it made when withdrawn from a human body – with its long 25 centimetres (9.8 in) and broad blade was an invention of Shaka that superseded the older thrown ipapa (so named because of the “pa-pa” sound it made as it flew through the air). It could theoretically be used both in melee and as a thrown weapon, but warriors were forbidden in Shaka’s day from throwing it, which would disarm them and give their opponents something to throw back. Moreover, Shaka felt it discouraged warriors from closing into hand-to-hand combat.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impi
What I found interesting about the Zulu example is how much brutality and punishment was used to just keep them sticking to the storming and close quarter tactics. After it was trained, they could use more long range weapons again even, but at first they needed to be disciplined to stand the pressure. Because the natural fighting method for larger human groups is hit and run tactics, basically skirmishing, and only close to the enemy once he seems to be wounded or weakened. Because its simply to risky and frightening to get caught by the hostile group of men.
In the European archaeological record, battle axes and maces, as well as specific flint daggers, are particularly interesting, because many of which were formed in a way which only made them useful as a weapon.
Whereas the regular bow could be used for hunting and a regular axe as a tool, these were some of the first specialised weapons for close quarter combat.
The more elaborate, sophisticated and widespread specialised close quarter weapons became, the more important that kind of warfare and disciplined war campaigning was. Like in the Corded Ware culture the importance of the bow decreased, while close quarter weaponry increased. I would go as far as to see a similar transition there as with the Zulus under Shaka.
If the Zulus would have been left alone, who knows how much of Southern Africa they would have eventually conquered and this was the second evolution from within the Bantus.
Razib-
I read The Horse Wheel and Language at your recommendation and really enjoyed it. I wanted to ask if there are any other books out there on the Yamnaya and related peoples that you would recommend.
I’m also slowly working through The Reformation by Diarmaid MacColloch, its good so far. I’ve had kind of a block to reading it, for some reason that period and all the burnings at the stake gives me the willies…
Hope you and your family are well.
@obs, on some more thoughts in your comments regarding genetic selection in late Roman period, at least where it is possible as we have physical studies of skeletal robusticity:
– https://delong.typepad.com/rome.pdf – in their datasets, there’s a dip in the early centuries BC, but then wellbeing/stature is improving in the subsequent period up to the Migration Period. Certainly in the Western Mediterranean region.
– within England, in this dataset, there’s some tendency to improvement through the Roman Imperial period from 150 AD- https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Heights-Across-the-Last-2000-Years-in-England-Galofr%C3%A9-Vil%C3%A0-Hinde/cdfa960787af61352a4dac730d86fcfabbcaa6d5
So patterns that are found don’t seem to extend through the duration of the Roman Imperial period up to Migration Period.
The speed with which dips do happen also seems pretty implausibly associated with genetic change.
More research may always find differing patterns of course!
I am a bit skeptical; as long as I’ve been reading blogs that related to ongoing natural selection in humans, there have been a few commentators (usually older pro-military men) who bemoan that deaths in particular wars must have led to immediate large dysgenic consequences for populations (spilling and losing the “best” blood), concerns onto which the hosts who know the generic theory tend to immediately pour cold water. So I trust that to some extent. Then on whether there’s a wider dynamic from “state level” professionalised warfare that pushes population genetic change away from “good soldiers” I doubt this too; even if the effects are negative within a soldier pool are large, it probably doesn’t matter relative to selection within society at large. And under a pretty typically Malthusian (completely unlike anything modern), and morbid regime like Rome’s, selection still would favour more robust qualities.
Some comments to bolster my comments from above:
A population works like a sponge, selection either increases saturation with an allel, or decreases it, like water being sucked up or squeezed out of a sponge. Single events cannot dry out the population all too much, unless its a very extreme situation like all people with a dominant allel die from a pandemic at once.
But in Rome we had many factors which amplified each others effect, most I did mention already for Roman citizens especially of the higher and middle class:
– Low birth rate
– High percentage lived in towns and cities, or in quarters with high density, being prone to diseases and pandemics
– Problematic situation for marriage and founding a family for soldiers
– High death rate of soldiers and politically active families, practically no biological reward for social, idealistic or brave behaviour
A Germanic warrior family could have, quite often, many sons, Roman families with many sons became an absolute exception and like explained, for soldiers it was even more difficult to get and raise them properly.
Concerning phenotypical traits, we have, especially in higher cultures, the problem of a “lag”, so while the socio-cultural situation is still improving, the genetic foundation of the respective population is already deteriorating. At first we therefore still have, quite often actually, positive rates for traits like brainsize, intelligence, height, improvment of social behaviour and educational attainment etc.
But this being realised by using the genetic potential better, by improving the conditions, while the selection is already decisively negative.
I know that the studies done on such subjects are rare, but I found the more recent studies on Iceland and Scandinavia quite informative. Many studies now prove the negative biological consequences of intelligence and educational attainment in the West, and modern Scandinavians are phenotypically taller, but their Viking ancestors were genetically taller and also might have different in some personality traits I don’t want to dig into, because that’s a debate of its own.
A state has always the problem of breaking down genetic barriers and small competitive clan groups, that’s like the prereqisite for it being successful, its a state building quality to some degree. Yet this immediately reduces the positive effects king group competition has, favourable traits and behaviour have. Because like described above, in a small tribal and kin group, the individual which acts brave and group oriented being gratified, almost immedietely, with better chances for reproductive success of himself and his immediate kin. Even in the case of his death, his immediate kin, brothers and cousins, will profit from his sacrifice.
In the Roman state an urban citizen staying at home might profit from 1.000 brave Roman citizen’s death, but their families and immediate relatives don’t as much, if at all. In fact the widows and orphans might be even much worse off and the brothers and cousins have no advantage neither.
For humans group competition plus good living conditions were vital for a good development. Adapting to natural, purely environmental pressures usually was not.
I might illustrate this with the island example. Spencer talked in the last episode about his problem with explaining why on islands some species got bigger, while others got smaller.
Well, the main cause of this effect is group vs. individual competition, social vs. rogue species. Because an island limits the size of the territory and the available resources in a strict way. A rogue species with individual selection and a less predatory environment will therefore grow in size, to win in the fight for resources and sexual partners.
A social species on the other hand, in which individual selection is sometimes of secondary importance for such physical and behavioural traits, will, to still keep up different competing groups on this small habitat, shrink in size and quality.
This happened with elephants on varous occasions, as it did with Hominids.
A larger metapopulation with many competing populations and subpopulations, with a larger territory to fight for, sufficient resources and an acceptable living standard, will not reduce size and quality as likely. The group level competition will prevent that from happening and instead light a constant cultural and biological improvmenet. This is particularly true for humans, for which one trait alone is usually not as decisive as a more balanced and generalised adaptation.
That’s why we have to look for the developments to and from early Homo sapiens to large metapopulations living in a favourable, larger sized habitat, in which many populations and subpopulations competed for the best places and resources.
A state prevents that from happening by bringing a different set of rules and structures into play, under which only a culture which favours positive traits and punishes negative ones will be able to even keep up the standards with which this culture started, quite often.
The Roman Empire however, did the exact opposite. It did not help and encourage its socio-biological backbone, its most important gentes, to procreate and prosper as it should have. Instead, cultural assimilation and the payment by money of foreign groups became the standard method of replacing the own losses. Since one populations potential after another became exhausted, for the reasons mentioned above, even though they accepted almost everybody and everything from within the Empire’s borders at the end, they still had to search and find new human resources from outside. This in itself, if you think about how the Roman Republic started, what it managed to do primarily from its Roman citizens in Latium, is a direct evidence of incapacity.
And to stress it once more, its not just about “good soldier” qualities, which even some dull psychopaths might have, but actually “good citizen qualities”, so people which could fill many roles throughout their life, like many Greek and Roman citizens did at the beginning of their states rise to power and glory.
One basic problem of all these systems is of course private property in the strict sense. This was much more a Roman law than a Greek problem, but its quite similar. Because usually the land of a family being just administered by the patriarch, but he can’t just sell or loan on it. He couldn’t just waste the family’s wealth for nothing and for sure not do what he likes with the village and land of his clan.
Once this communitarian structures became eroded, especially in the urban environment, families started to care too much for wealth, even sheer money, instead of other values. The money economy with private property always needs to be checked and its development guided, because on the one hand its useful, on the other its destructive. Very important is the control over “minting” or generally the money production, because Rome too was growing with its own independent currencty, and strangled when starting to use foreign loans and gold standard.
The more dominant money and private property become as values in a society, and protected by law before anything else, the more decadent and infertile the respective societies become, quite often, especially if other negative cultural ingredients being added and all protection removed.
Rome just showed to us how not to do it, on practically every level, once a state and society reaches a certain level, yet what they did was harmless, in some respects, as to what takes place now, this tells a lot about our current situation.
If early Rome would have been structured and worked the way late Rome did, they would have never became a great Empire, but being conquered by the next best competitor much earlier.
Many studies now prove the negative biological consequences of intelligence and educational attainment in the West,
So, being a semi-literate redneck preacher with a snake handling congregation is “better” in the long run than being an atheist Episcopalian priest with a doctorate who ministers to a highly educated upper class?
@iffen: Nice wording 😉
“Better” no, biologically more promising right now, on the short term, even tough both are dead ends: Yes.
Basically its a societal system and the selective regime it creates which is wrong. Like if you have a subpopulation in which the most violent and psychopathic criminals which don’t think twice about every atrocity they commit and which can’t plan ahead for the next week being the biologial winners. That too wouldn’t be better for the population or mankind, but just a short term success story which just threaten the greater population and culture under these circumstances.
If something is broken, the correct response is not to adapt to the defect, but to try to repair it. To adapt to the broken system is only the second best strategy, and if the system is really bad, it will ruin even those which try to adapt it, or probably those the most.
The cynicism of a system like it is at work in the USA, is that the worst effects on individuals and their biological success as well as ideological indoctrination being created by memetic transmissions which work best the longer an individual being exposed to it. Like time in the educational system, time among indoctrinated peers, time in job environments in which the ideology being spread etc., as well as the intelligence and naive idealism to being vulnerable to the suggestion to which they are exposed to.
Some of the Cultural Marxist constructs success is directly related to a preconditioning of the mind by learning complex cultural practises and theories, by accepting those as being “more real” than real life experiences and practical knowledge, which being discarded and defamed as “bad common sense” or “prejudices”. Many not that intelligent people which never went through the educational brainwashing don’t even understand it or can’t connect it to their real life experience.
This was one aspect of Cultural Marxism completely failing for the white working and middle class in the 1930’s to 1970’s and the subsequent disappointment and even anger from the Cultural Marxist ideologists. Their ideas and concepts were just too artificial, too absurd mental gymnastics for having an impact on normal people. So they tried to concentrate on higher educational people and that those will, with simpler messages, especially directed at the fringe groups and minorities, by establishing identity politics, turn the tide in their favour on the long run.
In the same way the Capitalist system too is most dangerous for people which can be socio-economically successful, can make a career, can consume a lot, have larger social networks and can be educated in a way which makes family and children either superfluous or even a burden for their life plan. Because “they have and want to do so much with their life, that a fix partner and many children would be just ‘ruining their plans and dreams’ rather than fulfilling them”.
That way both Cultural Marxist indoctrination and strictly Capitalist adaptation lead to lower birth rates, and both being related to higher intelligence, education and general abilities for jobs and work on average.
The only people less affected by these negative trends are those which have a natural protection, which can be an ideology, a religion or the natural inclination to found a family and having children regardless of the cost. At best a combination of these three factors at ones, a child and family wanting personality, a religious fundament, and an ideological position to reject both the extremes of Cultural Marxism and Liberalism ideologically, as well as a life planned for Capitalist-Materialist success.
The problem is a large portion of the population doesn’t have that and even those which have, which get a family and kids, are so much under pressure that they usually get nowhere as many as being able to replace the losses caused by the negative effects on the rest.
So a large portion of the children still born comes from people which are not planning families because they love it, or because of ideological and religious reasons, but because of simpler emotions and the inability to plan and successfully use contraception.
Like a woman which gets pregnant from a short term relationship with “some guy”, but which is not hard enough to abort, or even thinks this might improve her socio-economic existence – or at least not worsen it, because usually its bad enough already.
On the contrary a woman indoctrinated by Feminism and Capitalism will, even if she actually wants kids and has a good partner, postpone her pregnancy until she thinks the “nest is ready” and “everything perfect”. But this situation might never come, or it might come so late, that only 1-2 healthy kids, even if she wanted more, are still possible,
The inability to receive and internalise the messages of the Materalist ideologies Marxism and Liberalism, as well as the inability to plan ahead and being socially successful, is the safest protection, because any religious, ideological or personality trait running in a higher level family might be, at some point, questioned or come under pressure.
While being too stupid and unplanned to comply is really a safe way to go. Even if they want to use contraceptives, they regularly fail to use them consequently and by getting kids, they have less of an educational, social prestige or economic loss, because there is little to lose anyway.
That’s exactly what dysgenic selection is about, because on the long run this leads to an Idiocracy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
(fun to watch and all too close to the American reality already)
@Obs
I think that you need to reign in your hypotheticals.
A lot of what I’m saying is not hypothetical though, but either living practise or was practised before. We know what’s working and what not on the longer run, we have the data, we have the material to look at. Its no big mystery.
If a society functions like the current USA, its doomed to fail or produce something monstrous which is no good for the world. Yet they have the potential to do better, still, by correcting their path. By accepting a sick framework, people get sick themselves. And at least from the demographic perspective, this sickness makes their lineages die.
We know what’s working and what not on the longer run
Everything seems to be working just fine for the elites. An argument can be made, using share of wealth as a metric, that things are better than ever for them. To reference one of your examples, the Roman Empire, the elites were displaced or absorbed into the new elite. Where is that happening in the West?
What do you think about Samo Burja and Joseph Henrich?
Do you see them as arguing against cultural group selection?
Henrich says that memes can be selected within a group by copying high status people, rather than monoculture or copying parents.
Whereas Burja says almost the opposite, that important innovations require understanding and that they decay as they are copied.
@Iffen: “Everything seems to be working just fine for the elites. An argument can be made, using share of wealth as a metric, that things are better than ever for them. To reference one of your examples, the Roman Empire, the elites were displaced or absorbed into the new elite. Where is that happening in the West?”
We are at an earlier stage, look at the percentage of European descendent people and probably add highly assimilated, higher level immigrants to that number if you like, and you come to a percentage which is “still ok” for keeping up a state on largely a similar level as before.
Also the wealth distribution is completely skewed by now, but the fundaments of the middle class are just eroding, without being completely broken yet.
Similarly the system as a whole is in a transitional mode, which will lead to what the Plutocrats dreamed of and planned for decades, if not longer, yet we are not there yet and the big transitions are ahead of us, including in the state, control and financial sphere. We made steps in the direction of the final monopols and oligopols by the current Oligarchy and their big power over the people, but just that. No doubt, the transition will become bumpy eventually, because so far it was always about rather small steps, closer and closer, but not the big final ones, which will completely transition the financial system in a crisis, take away freedom of expression, completely, surveillance, totally, and a corrupted globalised structure established. That can go horribly wrong for everybody involved, whether you are in favour of it or not.
Their grave mistake will be, that they think they can replace human material like they want, can manipulate it like they want and can always use the money based system to control the media and structures sufficiently. They might be right, to some degree, if they reach a certain technological level, yet even then they will become, at some point, more and more dependent from mercenaries, both military ones, as well as technicians and digital specialists.
That was what the Roman Senate did too, or at least allowed to happen, but what they forgot is that soulless mercenaries which follow the money have at some point no reason to follow at all, because power beats money all the time. Like if you pay someone to protect you, one of the reasons he doesn’t just take your wealth himself is that you have a state and legal system, a police and military force, a moral and attitude which makes this if not impossible, so much harder and less desirable.
Now if a Plutocrat thinks he can ruin a people, ruin a state, ruin a culture and moral system, all its structures independent from his grip, and still be in charge by paying people, he might be right, or he might be wrong, it might be pure chance which decides at the end whether your own paid mercenaries at some day decide to defect or just cut your throat and place themselves on your throne.
We are not there yet in any Western country, but if going on the same path, we will reach that point within the next one or two generations. Than they will see whether it was a good idea to ruin the European people, to exploit them without caring for their well-being and whether they can pay themselves out of everything or not. In fact all their fortune being protected by the naive idealism and law-abiding character of the typical occidental citizen, which “the elite” managed to drill so well, that they think it can be done just like that with anyone, even within a generation.
And the Western citizens themselves think its this very system, with all its defects, especially in the economic and financial sphere, which allowed them to live individually relatively free, or at least feel that way and in relative material prosperity.
Both are wrong, but then again, we are not there yet.
@Obs
we are not there yet.
The future, like the past, has a way of changing.
My point is that you seem to be focused on a particular group (descendants of Europeans) and the increasing prosperity that they have enjoyed over the last decades. The shrinkage and immiseration of the middle class in the U. S. (is this even happening in Europe?) is not the end of civilization. It is not a given that the elites will even “need” us in the future. We are witnessing the passing of a certain facet, a certain milieu, not necessarily the end of civilization.