patrick.net

lostand confused says

I don't know. Too much intelligence seems to make women crazy and men into soyboys.

Also "educated/intelligent" people seem to be easier swayed by groupthink, collectivism and hence cultural-marxism/fascism.

mell says

Yeah but they also are strongly governed by stone-age dna (a couple hundred thousand years is nothing for dna memory) which favors the strong, bold, and psychopathic as these skills were necessary for survival back then. Hence the pool-boy, criminal, etc.

Therein lies the problem. Every woman fucks the bad boy, and the bad boy is the local gangster or club douche.

CBOEtrader says

mell says

Yeah but they also are strongly governed by stone-age dna (a couple hundred thousand years is nothing for dna memory) which favors the strong, bold, and psychopathic as these skills were necessary for survival back then. Hence the pool-boy, criminal, etc.

Therein lies the problem. Every woman fucks the bad boy, and the bad boy is the local gangster or club douche.

I think that's changing and it's starting with more sophisticated, evolved and independent women desiring professional and successful, while women with low self esteem are drawn to low-value bad boys since they have perceived levels of confidence and are within reach for low-value women.

PrivilegedtobeWhite says

CBOEtrader says

mell says

Yeah but they also are strongly governed by stone-age dna (a couple hundred thousand years is nothing for dna memory) which favors the strong, bold, and psychopathic as these skills were necessary for survival back then. Hence the pool-boy, criminal, etc.

Therein lies the problem. Every woman fucks the bad boy, and the bad boy is the local gangster or club douche.

I think that's changing and it's starting with more sophisticated, evolved and independent women desiring professional and successful, while women with low self esteem are drawn to low-value bad boys since they have perceived levels of confidence and are within reach for low-value women.

Somewhat traditional (next to hot) is most important IMO. They desire the right amount of stable alpha (without the psycopathic tendencies) necessary for a successful nuclear family unit. Somewhat glad I'm out of the dating market - sampling is def fun and I miss it sometimes, but hardly any family material these days. Perhaps a few more years of MAGA will effect more positive change towards stable families.

Patrick says

CBOEtrader says

Would those genetic changes be heritable?

Yes, actual changes in human genes, say in the germline (eggs and sperm). So they would be heritable.

This modern infatuation is intelligence is misplaced. If intelligence was truly the end all of be all of all things, then those with highest levels of intelligence would be the richest and the most powerful if not both, but that is not what we see in the world today. The fact is that stupid people are found in all walks of life at all levels of power and wealth and that is true with intelligent people as well.

Humans are social animals. Just being intelligent is not good enough, you must be perceived to be intelligent by the rest and the rest must feel that your intelligence is of value only then will an intelligent person rise up and assume the ranks of rich and powerful. Entrepreneurs come from all walks of life and while a highly intelligent person may be pondering the mysteries of the universe, it is the Chinese immigrant without too much intelligence who will start a small restaurant and turn it into a hugh Panda Express chain that can then hire all the "smart" accounts to do number crunching.

Money and power usually pass through inheritance but not by conducting intelligence tests. Even if you are super intelligent, there is no guarantee that you children will be super intelligent too. Doing hard work, being in the right place in the right time, being lucky, knowing the right people, being in a specific environment helps too.

Intelligence by itself is misleading and plays only a minor role in the overall success and quality of life. Correlating race with intelligence is a left over of the past biases. Even if one race is more intelligent than the other by the time that intelligence is reflected at the ground level it is high diluted.

alpo says

If intelligence was truly the end all of be all of all things, then those with highest levels of intelligence would be the richest and the most powerful if not both, but that is not what we see in the world today.

On average it does work this way though.

There are other factors in the net worth model. Besides inheritance, I'd guess that no factor is stronger than intelligence.

CBOEtrader says

On average it does work this way though.

There are other factors in the net worth model. Besides inheritance, I'd guess that no factor is stronger than intelligence.

Life is not that simple. There are a large number of factors every think from climate to topography, to availability of natural resources, to susceptibility to diseases, etc that contribute to making a successful person (at an individual level) and successful society (and a larger scale).

Beyond a certain point (say sum average of human intelligence), intelligence is of little value (just like strength is of little value beyond a certain point). To say that everything depends upon intelligence is the stupidest argument one could make.Not everyone is going to be a theoretical physicists (and there is no value in having everyone become a theoretical physicist).

alpo says

To say that everything depends upon intelligence

Noone said this. Go read my post again if you are confused.

Bill Gates did make a good point in Congress many years back. He said that in past decades an average american had better economic success than a genius in India.

So perhaps in a world w vast economic system differences, the economic system is perhaps more of an indicator of success.

Holding other factors steady though and intelligence is an enormously powerful indicator. If you read the IQ thread recently, you'd know that JP suggested IQ accounts for 15% of the expected life success. This is far more than any other individual factor (according to JP)

CBOEtrader says

Holding other factors steady though and intelligence is an enormously powerful indicator. If you read the IQ thread recently, you'd know that JP suggested IQ accounts for 15% of the expected life success. This is far more than any other individual factor (according to JP)

I don't know. "Life success" itself is a pretty subjective concept and to layer IQ on top at 15% level of contribution makes it sound very shady - probably no better than pure luck or being in the right place and the right time or being born to parents who pay more attention to child's development. At least you agree that IQ has no contribution in 85% of the success of an individual :-)

alpo says

"Life success" itself is a pretty subjective concept and to layer IQ on top at 15% level of contribution makes it sound very shady

theres a real point in there. Success is subjective.

alpo says

probably no better than pure luck

Do you really believe this? Why work hard if it's all pure luck? In your life do the pot heads have the same success as the PHD's?

CBOEtrader says

Do you really believe this? Why work hard if it's all pure luck? In your life do the pot heads have the same success as the PHD's?

The only pot head I know has a pretty big trust fund and is probably smarter than most phd's I have met - many of whom simply went into the phd program because they couldn't find a real job. Hard work plays a bigger role, having a good guide and examples to follow, teachers, coaches, parents also plays a big role. Luck probably plays as much role as IQ. Equating IQ with success is stupidity - probably a notch below hoping for good luck.

alpo says

Equating IQ with success is stupidity - probably a notch below hoping for good luck.

It's true I am not sure how JP measures "success" when he says IQ is the most determinant factor, but in my own experience this is also true. At least in so far as what is measurable.

I would say that discipline is more important but theres no way to measure that ahead of time.

Luck is a huge factor, but it's not something you can control.

I see what you are saying, but I think you are undervaluing IQ.

CBOEtrader says

I see what you are saying, but I think you are undervaluing IQ.

Before one can measure human intelligence, they must at the very least understand what they mean by human intelligence. Given that we as humans haven't come even close to understanding what "intelligence" is, any metric that claims to measure intelligence is idiotic and only displays the stupidity of those who support such metrics. Let's break this down a bit: 1) we don't understand what intelligence is, 2) we don't understand what "race" is, yet in some magical way we are 3) somehow supposed to understand what IQ (a supposed measure of intelligence is) and then 4) correlate two things that we don't understand (i.e race and intelligence) with some cooked up metric called IQ - nothing could be more stupider.

I know what height is and I know how to measure it. I know how high and average human is and I know how high an average elephant is so I can compare and contrast elephants with humans in terms of height. I don't know what "intelligence" is. I also don't know what "race" is, but somehow you expect me to correlate intelligence and race with some cooked up metric called IQ and then further correlate that metric to subjective concept of "success" ? Am I missing something here?

IQ is the last refuge of racists many of whom continue to enjoy patronage in academics and push out crap every few years. The only thing such studies correlating IQ and race shows is how stupid racists in academia are.

alpo says

1) we don't understand what intelligence is, 2) we don't understand what "race" is, yet in some magical way we are 3) somehow supposed to understand what IQ (a supposed measure of intelligence is) and then 4) correlate two things that we don't understand (i.e race and intelligence) with some cooked up metric called IQ - nothing could be more stupider.

Not true. We understand IQ well.

Race is undefineable, but race hasnt been part of this discussion. Although I do now see your mental block in accepting IQ.

CBOEtrader says

Not true. We understand IQ well.

We understand IQ well - its a cooked up metric. The part that we don't understand is whether IQ measures "intelligence" like inches measure distance. The reason we don't understand that part is because we don't yet understand what "intelligence" is.

Lol, pure wordgames. Conversation over.

"It depends on the meaning of what "IS" is. "

What about wisdom? I would argue that this quality is quite different from intelligence, and is often found in people who are not particularly intelligent. I’m quantifying “intelligence” as the degree to which one has the ability to think abstractly. The more than a person can live in his/her mind, pondering the problems of life and the universe, the more complicated problems they can solve. This is important, and what has played into most of the technological advancements of the human race.

But wisdom, that’s more like the ability to make good choices, to foresee the consequences of ones actions and choose the path that leads to the best result. Wisdom can be found in people of varying degrees of intelligence. I know at least one person with quite low intelligence but high wisdom. I’d argue that this quality is the greatest factor which can determine LIFE success. Success in relationships, business, finances, employment, and the like can be achieved more easily with high wisdom.

Intelligence seems to inhibit wisdom. This is why there are so many highly intelligent people who are complete idiots when it comes to interacting with the real world.

Patrick says

deliberate genetic engineering

Already happening. Linkup up, or become bred for organs.

Quigley says

What about wisdom? I would argue that this quality is quite different from intelligence, and is often found in people who are not particularly intelligent. I’m quantifying “intelligence” as the degree to which one has the ability to think abstractly. The more than a person can live in his/her mind, pondering the problems of life and the universe, the more complicated problems they can solve.

I would agree with this if you combine Common Sense as part of that wisdom package. Intelligence by itself is mostly useless, unless you know how to put it to work. Having common sense and wisdom to understand the path you need to follow can go a long way to achieving success.

Quigley says

Intelligence seems to inhibit wisdom. This is why there are so many highly intelligent people who are complete idiots when it comes to interacting with the real world.

Exactly right.

I trained a ton of service techs and installer early in my career, and the "smart" or "intelligent" ones were not the most successful. The guys who could use common sense to work through an issue were always the most successful, even if they weren't considered the smartest in the group.

only stupid people talk about “IQ” because the smart people are still trying to answer “what is intelligence.”

get in a crowded hall full of people talking about random stuff and find people who are talking about IQ and rest assured u have found the stupidest people in the group.
CBOEtrader says

Lol, pure wordgames. Conversation over.

"It depends on the meaning of what "IS" is. "

alpo says

only stupid people talk about “IQ”

Idiots like Jordan Peterson talk about IQ.

Aphroman says

All the most successful and wealthy people i know are open to cannabis consumption. I’m talking self made multi millionaires. I can’t say that about any PHD’s that i know

I'm not talking about consumption. I used the word pothead. Do you not differentiate between a degenerate drunk and someone who drinks 4 beers a week?

MisterLefty says

Patrick says

deliberate genetic engineering

Already happening. Linkup up, or become bred for organs.

It's already happening when women go shopping at sperm banks for "Intelligent athletes with blue eyes".

MrMagic says

Quigley says

What about wisdom? I would argue that this quality is quite different from intelligence, and is often found in people who are not particularly intelligent. I’m quantifying “intelligence” as the degree to which one has the ability to think abstractly. The more than a person can live in his/her mind, pondering the problems of life and the universe, the more complicated problems they can solve.

I would agree with this if you combine Common Sense as part of that wisdom package. Intelligence by itself is mostly useless, unless you know how to put it to work. Having common sense and wisdom to understand the path you need to follow can go a long way to achieving success.

Quigley says

Intelligence seems to inhibit wisdom. This is why there are so many highly intelligent people who are complete idiots when it co...

Agree as well on widsom or what you learn or don't from your experiences.

alpo says

CBOEtrader says

Not true. We understand IQ well.

We understand IQ well - its a cooked up metric. The part that we don't understand is whether IQ measures "intelligence" like inches measure distance. The reason we don't understand that part is because we don't yet understand what "intelligence" is.

That's your opinion on it and while I agree that there are many problems with a standard measure for IQ it is still being used for many decisions, regardless of race. Usually these standards stick until somebody comes up with a better one.

1. IQ is quite real. The US military has been using IQ tests for recruitment for well over half a century. That's where mission-critical and life vs. death can be direct consequences, so SJW make-belief wouldn't fly (the reality-check is the only advantage coming from regular engagement in small wars; reality check for both technology and personnel policies).

2. Group average does not determine every particular individual. It's just like the height scenario across genders: the average for adult male in the US 5'9", that of female is 5'4"; however, there are obviously cases of individual woman taller than individual man. OTOH, when you have 1000 women and 1000 men picked at random, the average of the men is likely taller than the average of the women. Likewise, if you have 1000 positions that requires 6' in height, then you are likely to have men to women ratio higher than 10:1. Such a lopsided result when sampling size is large is not due to sexism but simply 6'+ men out-number 6'+ women by more than 10:1.

3. There is average, then there is variance / distribution. For example, men and women IQ average are very close to each other (within 5 points or so of each other). However, the IQ of men have much wider distribution than that of women; i.e. there are far more geniuses among men and far more losers/dummies among men, compared to women. 97% of homeless are men; that's 30:1 ratio. At IQ>120, men out-number women by 2:1; at IQ>170 (deep into genius territory, which starts around 140), men out-number women by 30:1. Not a typo, not 3:1, but 30:1, just like the homeless ratio the other way. 97% homeless being men, and 95% of Fortune500 CEO's being men (and 90+% prison inmates being men) are not necessarily due to sexism at all. In fact, when women accounted for nearly 10% of SP500 CEO's, it was a very profitable trading strategy to short whichever SP500 company that had relatively recently appointed female CEO (i.e. not a female executive who built the company from when it was small, like Meg Whitman of Ebay, but a color-waiving exercise appointing woman to the helm of a big company) SJW make-belief lose battles, in the battlefield and in the marketplace.

4. NBA having far higher than 15% black players is not due to racism; the specific players simply play better! Likewise, high tech companies' engineering positions having less than 15% blacks and less than 50% women are not necessarily due to racism or sexism; the statistically far more common case of being "6'+" and "can jump" in that specific field simply happen to be someone else. Despite the averages, there are individual cases of African Americans as well as women who are extremely intelligent (it might even be argued that AA's have wider IQ distribution). It is however a fallacy to promote that every AA or every woman should be extremely intelligent: such a policy would only make the individual AA and individual woman unhappy for not living up to the expectation.

5. IQ is highly correlated to income. However, income doesn't mean happiness, which is the result of exceeding one's own expectations. The high IQ person who never set out to prove him/herself as the smartest person, but finding success far beyond his/her own initial expectations, that makes the person much happier than the early-discovered "child geniuses." That, IMHO, is the strongest argument against doing too much genetic modification on fetus. OTOH, some modification for basic cognitive abilities will most certainly take place, just like parents will also buy genes that make boys a little taller.

The common tendency is to view intelligence as a 'gift' of an individual and defining a kind of superiority of the individual.

In an increasingly technologic world, abstract forms of intelligence are certainly becoming advantageous to the owners.

However, Intelligence is an emergent genetic trait of a population expressed in individuals, not a fixed trait of individuals monolithically transferred to descendants. It is likely due to certain kinds of randomly grouped genes. Whether it is even adaptive or not depends on context. Also, having a few intelligent individuals in a population probably benefits the population, not just the intelligent individuals. If intelligence were the only metric for survival, then everybody by definition would have to be intelligent, and they are not.

Intelligence is not always necessary to survival. Many dumfuks procreate and survive quite well. Modern technologic society has created an environment that MAKES intelligence advantageous. Modern technologic society, however, is not a historical biological norm.

Also, historically, individuals of high reasoning ability have often been persecuted and killed as freaks.

Perhaps there are ethnic and religious groups that have been artificially evolved with higher intelligence through murderous persecution. The paranoid, resource driven, and intelligent individuals selectively survived. It could be the persecutors applying a selective pressure on the groups they persecute, at least until the persecuted group integrate seamlessly and inconspicuously, or both together simply evolve a novel melded culture.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1274952/Men-ARE-brainy-women-says-scientist-Professor-Richard-Lynn.html

This supports Reality’s statements above. Very interesting facts and they explain a LOT about why women are SO vastly underrepresented in high tech, mathematics, physics, and as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. They’re working against a deck that Nature stacked against them.

https://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Intelligence + CRISPER

It'll be a while, but it's coming Pat. Watch for it in China first.

Reality says

IQ is quite real

We know that a speed test will measure how fast a person can run and a height test will measure how tall a person is, but we don't know whether IQ measures Intelligence. We just don't have a good enough idea of what Intelligence is to be able to measure it. Before we talk about IQ, I think a better topic of discussion will be "what is intelligence?" that is where all the research funding and smart people are flowing to, but not towards doing stupid things like evaluating IQ.

IQ is a useless relic of the past. It has nothing to do with SJW, women right, race relations, etc or any other social cause or gripe. IQ is just plain stupid when it comes to measuring intelligence.

Reality says

IQ is highly correlated to income.

Correlation does not mean causation.

IQ test measures a wide range of cognitive functions/abilities, and is very much culture-independent, as the problems usually involve perception and problem solving that have nothing to do with any culture. You can define "intelligence" to mean whatever you want (say, the ability to lie and cheat and still run for president), but what you define as "intelligence" would have less to do with real life problem-solving ability of the subject than IQ test score does. IQ tests have proven so good at assessing a person's ability to solve real life new problems that the person has never encountered before that IQ test score has become the substantive assessment behind the short-hand "intelligence," simply because no other measure of "intelligence" has come even close to the relevance and predictive power of IQ tests: it beats educational degree achievement and parentage, as well as upbringing and cultural background!

Correlation does not mean causation.

Correlation is the only thing we human beings can observe. "Causation" requires interpretation. Even the basic Newtonian formula F= m * a is result of correlation from observed data. There is no way we can refute the possibility that the entire universe is run by a bunch of little green aliens who can pause time in infinitiimal slices and then rearrange us and all objects around us according to some rule book they use before hitting the continue button; or for that matter, everything in this universe is a simulation run on an alien's computer, and Plank length is the granuality of the simulation. There is simply no way to refute that version of "causation" interpretation. All we can observe directly is correlation.

Reality says

Correlation is the only thing we human beings can observe. "Causation" requires interpretation. Even the basic Newtonian formula F= m * a is result of correlation from observed data.

F=ma isn't a prediction (F=ma), its a definition (F ≡ ma) . Force is defined as mass times acceleration, it can't be false in any situation. Intelligence isn't defined as IQ.

Reality says

There is no way we can refute the possibility that the entire universe is run by a bunch of little green aliens who can pause time in infinitiimal slices and then rearrange us and all objects around us according to some rule book they use before hitting the continue button; or for that matter, everything in this universe is a simulation run on an alien's computer, and Plank length is the granuality of the simulation.

There is no proof of that.

Reality says

IQ test measures a wide range of cognitive functions/abilities

We know what mass means, we know what acceleration means and hence by definition (F ≡ ma) we know what Force means. We don't know what Intelligence means - people are still working on trying to figure it out. There is simply no well accepted definition of Intelligence like we have a well accepted definition of Force, so unless you first come up with a well accepted definition of "Intelligence", you can't really measure it and you won't be able to come up with a well accepted definition of Intelligence because we are still trying to figure out what "Intelligence" is.

With IQ what we seem to have put the cart before the horse, i.e somehow we seem to have come up with a measure of Intelligence without knowing what intelligence is. I think it will be a hundred years more before a well accepted definition of Intelligence and ways to measure it emerge. IQ is a very bad start.

Informally yes you can believe in anything and everything and just go by your subjective gut feel of who is smart and who is dumb.

alpo says

F=ma isn't a prediction (F=ma), its a definition (F ≡ ma) . Force is defined as mass times acceleration, it can't be false in any situation. Intelligence isn't defined as IQ.

"F=ma" is not true in Relativistic Mechanics. In other words, "F=ma" is never accurate, but only an approximation at slow velocity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_mechanics#Force

I'm sure the word "force" existed in English long before Isaac Newton wrote his book on Newtonian Mechanics. Perhaps a 200-year earlier version of you might have tried to debate him on what "force" was, just like the current version seems to prefer a version of definition already 100 years out of date.

Reality says

There is no way we can refute the possibility that the entire universe is run by a bunch of little green aliens who can pause time in infinitiimal slices and then rearrange us and all objects around us according to some rule book they use before hitting the continue button; or for that matter, everything in this universe is a simulation run on an alien's computer, and Plank length is the granuality of the simulation.

There is no proof of that.

At least it's not proven false like the faith/theory in "F=ma"

alpo says

We don't know what Intelligence means - people are still working on trying to figure it out. There is simply no well accepted definition of Intelligence like we have a well accepted definition of Force, so unless you first come up with a well accepted definition of "Intelligence", you can't really measure it and you won't be able to come up with a well accepted definition of Intelligence because we are still trying to figure out what "Intelligence" is.

If you wish, you can replace every occurrence of the word "intelligence" in discussions on intelligence/IQ with "the quality of performing well in IQ tests." Guess what? "the quality of performing well in IQ tests" happens to be far better correlated with a person's ability to solve numerous different new (to him/her) problems than just about any other quality that a person can be measured, including but no limited to "the quality to do well in school" (educational background / degree), "the quality of being raised well" (the SJW theory that everyone is born the same in every way, only raising and education matter), etc. etc. That "quality of performing well in IQ tests" happens to permeate the performance in almost all fields that require thinking and mental acuity. What word you use as a short-hand for "the quality to do well in IQ tests, and do well in real life problem solving" is not nearly as important as the phenomenon/concept itself. Almost all well established researchers in the field have adopted the term "intelligence." You can call that quality "divinely gifted if black/female but evil if white/male" if you wish, but still wouldn't change the facts on the ground: just change the word "intelligence" in the reading material to "IQ score" (or "that which can not be spoken, but is divinely gifted if black/female but evil if white/male") and you get the same observed phenomena.

I haven't read the posts yet but just the title of the thread.

I saw something that someone found that we humans have varying levels of Neanderthal DNA.

The premise was that the humans who have more of the Neanderthal DNA are slightly more intelligent than those who lack it entirely.

Of course, if any geographic location had a population that stayed homogenous, not bringing in outsiders who had no Neanderthal DNA, the possibility exists for this group to end up with higher than average Neanderthal DNA.

I remember some smart kids in my school. One liked to show off playing chess not looking at the chessboard, he visualized it in his head. Later he went to MIT and later was some kind of "egghead". He and others had perfect SAT scores which was before they made it a bit easier.

Genius kid from my high school with perfect scores on everything went into an accelerated 6 year Phd program at a prominent East Coast Ivory Tower. He and several other genius kids died in a dorm fire his first year on campus. The strange thing, they were all bored and tried some kind of witchcraft ritual or summoning, and the resulting fire is what killed them. Putting them together resulted in an unspecified group insanity.

As many as 50 percent of the loftiest identified geniuses don't amount to much in life, often by choice. It appears that ultra-high levels of intelligence can result in an existential stall as often as adaptation and success.

Quigley says

What about wisdom?

What about penis sizes?

clambo says

The premise was that the humans who have more of the Neanderthal DNA are slightly more intelligent than those who lack it entirely.

Isnt this a bizarre concept. Somehow Neanderthals were more intelligent? Yet they died, and humans thrived. Is there a scientific summary of this? I'd love to read it.

I have read that Neanderthals were physically stronger with larger brain cavities. So why did humans win? The answer I've seen is gender diversification of labor, which eventually led to more labor diversification. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061204123302.htm "The competitive advantage enjoyed by modern humans came not just from new weapons and devices but from the ways in which their economic lives were organized around the advantages of cooperation and complementary subsistence roles for men, women, and children," write Steven L. Kuhn and Mary C. Stiner (University of Arizona)."

Science suggests that we thrived BECAUSE OF GENDER ROLES. Science is obviously just a Nazi propaganda tool of fascism.

"*Thus, it was the emergence of "female" roles -- subsistence and skill-intensive craft -- that allowed H. sapiens in ecologically diverse tropical and sub-tropical regions to take advantage of other foods and live at higher population densities.*"

Just a theory, but what if different components of intelligence are located on sex specific chromosomes? Say, more of them corresponding to emotional intelligence on the X chromosome and more correspondence with spatial and abstract reasoning on the Y?

Quigley says

Say, more of them corresponding to emotional intelligence on the X chromosome and more correspondence with spatial and abstract reasoning on the Y?

Only Hitler talks like that.

Kidding, your theory makes sense. Remember when Lawrence Summers made a simple observation of gender specific behavior in his students and daughters, only to have the entire world turn SJW on him before there were SJW's? https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/jan/18/educationsgendergap.genderissues

"Cooperation" in economics usually means division of labor and mutually willing exchange, not everyone trying to do the same thing and competing in each other's niche while stepping on each other's toes.

Experience and natural selection also count for a lot. Folks that left Africa faced new challenges that selected survivors. The stay behinds, not so much.

Aphroman says

Cooperation - the process of working together to the same end.


Cooperation - is the process of groups of organisms working or acting together for common, mutual, or some underlying benefit, as opposed to working in competition for selfish benefit.

In economics cooperation - the formation and operation of cooperatives. also known as co-ops

May want to read up on what happened in the first few years after the May Flower landed in Plymouth:

https://mises.org/library/what-really-happened-plymouth

In addition to gender division of labor (allowing women less exposed to risks associated with hunting and battles), what the Cro-Mags had over the Neanderthals was a cross-continent trade network (as evidenced by the Cro-Mags' weapons and tools made from much better material transported from very far away). If our ancestors had tried a large scale co-op instead, they'd have starved to death just like the early settlers at Plymouth Colony (and Virginia Colony before them) found out. Personal responsibility (i.e. sub-division of resources into private domains) and division of labor through mutually willing trade are what bring forth resource abundance (and survival in a resource-limited environment, where Economics apply/matter).

MisterLefty says

Experience and natural selection also count for a lot. Folks that left Africa faced new challenges that selected survivors. The stay behinds, not so much.

Very well said. There was also a fundamental economic difference between sub-Sahara Africa vs. regions entered into by groups who were driven out by the stay-behinds: sub-Sahara Africa had an abundance of easily attainable food year-round for human ancestors; poisonous snakes/insects, food poisoning and tropical diseases put a lid on human population growth (before modern medicine lifted that lid in the 20th century), so the population was almost always below the land's natural (food) carry-capacity. The driven-out groups however faced much harsher environments, where food was either scarcer to begin with or had seasonality that made food almost unattainable during part of the year (winter) if not artificially stored / transported. OTOH, random disease/poison death rates were much lower in cooler climate zones. That environmental stability/cyclicity made intelligence, knowledge accumulation, division of labor and trade into evolutionary advantages, as they would raise the land's (food) carry-capacity, especially when the population was less exposed to random death events like snake/insect venom and tropical diseases.