Comments by "Classical LP Vault" (@classicallpvault8251) on "Victor Davis Hanson | The Western Way of War" video.

  1. Are you aware that the brain is 85% of the genome and there is a massive overlap between disease resistance and intelligence? Even down to specific mutations (like TB resistance and high IQ among Ashkenazi Jews, due to a recessive gene that is beneficial with one copy and causes Tay-Sachs with 2 copies). If the Papuas had had livestock giving them the same diseases we got, they would have suffered from the same naturally eugenic mass outbreaks of disease that we suffered from and as a result their average IQs would undoubtedly have been a lot higher. It's not a coincidence that most highly developed cultures, except for the Incas, Zapotec, Aztec and Mayan empires, arose in the Old World among people who had livestock living among them and the highest cultures arose in Europe where people were literally surrounded by open sewers 24/7. Disease-induced mortality salients have a significant eugenic effect and the elevation of civilisation is downstream from a rise in general intelligence. The impact of outbreaks of TB on baboon populations has been observed and they showed symptoms of higher intelligence and elevated pro-sociality even in generations born after the outbreak (until the population fell apart and spread out among other baboon colonies) so the same phenomenon has been observed in non-human primates significantly more primitive than we are. The impact of germs cannot be underestimated but it's not infecting people you're at war with that gives you the advantage, as the book claims, but the eugenic effect they have on your own gene pool.
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