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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Am I the only one to whom this post smacks of this description of phlogiston theory? This is just my knee-jerk reaction talking here, but it feels like you're stretching a little too hard to make this essay work.

While I think the degradation at the high end of the population density scale is adequate, I propose a different - though perhaps equally-forced - mechanism for the transition from low to medium:

As a poor Forager, you do what you need to do to survive; everyone understands this, and there are very few social norms at all except those that really, really matter. People in survival situations often have trouble behaving rationally because they're not comfortable with instantly shirking a huge number of social norms in their shift to an extremely low available population - a theme often played-with in fiction during e.g. a zombie crisis, or being lost in a desert.

As a Farmer in a moderate environment, you are afforded ways to attempt to elevate yourself socially. Ornamentation becomes a way to specifically signal to what degree one need not concern oneself with mere survival. Ornamentation can be long fingernails and gold; it can also be the accumulation of etiquette. In addition to this, you are afforded more leeway for behaviors which serve only purely psychological purposes and are objectively quite inefficient in terms of maximizing food energy available.

This effect at the lower shift and the one in the article at the higher shift can be considered two unconnected forces with ramifications at vastly different scales. As an example, I present the arbitrary norm-observance function to population variable x: f(x) = 1000x - x²

What I prefer about this explanation is that it more cleanly fits into the supposition that we are Forager people by default, that is to say preferentially, where we only favor forming and favoring norms when we have enough food to not be desperate to survive, but still low-enough populations that the anonymity effect doesn't kick in. Under the OP model, on the other hand, we are Farmer-type norm-followers by default, but simply empathize too strongly with others at low populations. This requires additional explanation for why we appear to prefer to be Farmers but are Foragers at low populations, prefer to be Farmers and are so at medium populations, and prefer to be Foragers and are so at large populations. If you venture such explanations, it would be conscientious of you to affix a dotted line with a label reading "APPLY OCCAM'S RAZOR HERE".

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Key question is whether farmers have 'stronger' norms, or simply 'more' norms. 'More' seems a good candidate: higher productivity -> more resources left for norm industry.

My strong bayesian is foragers have at least equally 'strong' norms - belief in curses, black magic, evil eyes, at least equal propensity for vendettas, honor-killings, etc.

Probability-adjusted punishment would actually predict 'stronger' norms among less dense people. I think the modern city is more a matter of lowered consequences to violation as a result of higher incomes.

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