The pop of pop

How will physical and cultural evolution interact in the future?

We have evolved in two ways since hominids first emerged somewhere in Africa two and a half million years ago.

Culturally; we live together in massive populations and interact in a mostly peaceful way. How did we evolve that degree of tolerance? Epidemic disease resistance (physical) promoted city living (cultural) but cities also drove disease resistance. What came first?

Physically; large brains, upright posture, small teeth, delicate features, opposable thumbs and so on. We cannot assign a specific reason why each of these traits evolved and why they came together two hundred thousand years ago.

I will discuss the relationship between cultural and physical evolution in the future. Online interactions already spur commerce, crime, suicide and dating. How will the online world drive cultural and physical evolution? Who will be the winners and losers? What physical traits will be selected for?

Section 1; Cultural evolution

Between the beginning of agriculture in southern Anatolia and the first city in Ur humans went from living in small hunter gatherer bands to cities with tens of thousands of inhabitants. They could not have done this without evolving ways to interact with large numbers of fellow humans. A hunter gatherer tribe would have perhaps two hundred members. Technologically they had no way of extracting enough food and other resources from an area they could traverse in a reasonable time to sustain a larger population. The crucial point would have come in winter when game and food plants were scarce. A larger group would have had to split up.

Because of this group size decisions could have been reached quickly without the necessity of central planning. Any...

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... resonance when differences between nations matter less than differences between individuals.

Finally are the cultural and physical traits that will make us successful in the future complementary? We have seen that disease resistance and the ability to interact peacefully have worked with the cultural innovation of living in larger groups. Those same physical traits will also work in conjunction with the development of online culture and city living in a positive feedback loop. Better communication skills give more success economically and socially. Better economic and social status mean people with good communication skills are more likely to pass on their genes; the crucial factor that enabled humans to come together at Gobekli Tepe, and now online, is better communication. Whether cultural or physical whatever promotes this trait will come to dominate our future.