Internal variation:
If you were to run back to the most recent summary of January 1, 2015 you ought to find mention of internal and external factors for a population. I suggest that internal factors would include the politics of the population and any genetic factors that caused it to differ from some other population if such exist. The italics are new because that is the current issue. Somebody has actually claimed that some of the genes have been found and their effect quantitated.
My source is my favorite blog, hbd chic. In this case the link is https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2015/01/23/genetics-and-natl-differences-in-life-history-strategies/
She has put up the data and commented on it. That’s what I like about the blog. You get the raw data whenever possible. I can’t even claim that for myself; I really, really try to send you to the proper references and give a token of the data to the point where I hope nobody really takes the scunners at me (I have never heard “scunner” in the singular) for treading on intellectual property. (It’s not for profit and is for education so I’m not really worried.)
If you run down the link you’ll find the matter in question has to do with things like ability to control impulses. It’s all part of the rich tapestry of life of course, examine the evidence, weigh it and decide if and as you will. But for my purposes (here we go with emphasis) such factors have no effect whatever on the long term survival of a society.
Neither internal nor external factors ever do. The mechanism that determines whether and when a population collapse is ancient in the extreme, older say than mammals. So it is hardly concerned with your ideas of justice, pleasure or whatever. It’s going to work its effect like gravity with total moral indifference.
I hasten to acknowledge that these other things are important. You can have nice conditions and you can have not so nice conditions. Put your heart into whatever you think is right, for sure. But spare a thought for this rather obscure bit of biology. When our society goes under, not to mention when Homo sapiens goes under for the same reason, all those principles go, too.
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