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Peter Thomson's avatar

Not sure if you're using the foragers/farmers distinction seriously or just as labels. If the former - just where exactly in modern life is anything much decided by informal chat forming a consensus? If the latter, well left/right are not personal inclinations or psychological traits, but positions in a social matrix. See, eg, the very different ways these map in the US as compared to pretty much any other western country, or the recent research that showed even infrequent exposure to Fox News shifted political views rightward.

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cwcwcwcwcw's avatar

Very interesting. I think--like you said--the key is that while people have a range of personality that affects how they act politically, the average group political personality sways with conditions.

I also think that you have to somehow accommodate the different behaviors of men and women, and the different behaviors of dominance motivated/enable men and non-dominant men. A huge amount of what we call history is the result of the actions of a continual supply of a very few--probably psychopathic--men. At a certain point it seems like the shackles of forager community broke allowing the male monsters to wreak the havoc we are so used to over the past few thousand years. My question is, is this concept correct, or did male psychopaths rule hunter/gatherer communities too?

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