> First, this could only happen to small, isolated, and bottle necked populations. This on its own eliminated the vast majority of humanity I disagree with sev

> First, this could only happen to small, isolated, and bottle necked populations. This on its own eliminated the vast majority of humanity I disagree with several points made here. Firstly, I would question your reasoning behind the prerequisite of the population being "small", because in fact larger societies face different and more complex challenges than small ones, which in turns favors the ability to navigate the challenges of large human groups. More to the point, environmental pressure is applied regardless of a group's size. Secondly, an isolated population does not eliminate the vast majority of humanity - far from it. While there's always some form of mobility between societies, until very recently that was a relatively rare phenomenon. By and large people lived and died within artillery distance of where they were born. > including any racist notions like "asian" or "black." This is actually the first time I've heard those designations described as 'racist', but that's somewhat orthogonal and more of a passing observation > In your dog metaphor, it's like looking at a dachshund and then saying "all dogs with short hair are also have short legs." I don't follow this extension to my analogy, which is probably a reflection of the problems of using analogies as a discussion aid in the first place > Between the occasional plague and the occasional famine, you have times of war and times of peace. You have changing aesthetics, shifting cultures, values gained and lost. Yes, but at its core an urban, even if premodern, existence places emphasis on different skill sets than a hunter gatherer lifestyle. This goes back to my point above about the social challenges of navigating large human groups - aesthetics can change, but figuring out how to grapple with complex social dynamics, as opposed to taming nature, is a constant (and one closely correlated with the evolution of human intelligence to boot)