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whpearson comments on Typical Mind and Politics - Less Wrong
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Be warned some large speculation follows
There is a fairly strong liberal/conservative split between urban and rural areas. Now let us say that the human brain is slightly polymorphic and alters its structure dependent upon the population density it finds itself in.
In an urban environment the brain needs to worry somewhat about non-human threats, disease and fire. Raiding from bandits is less of a problem. Some form of taking of money (be it a protection racket or legitimate government) is very likely and in this situation it is unlikely to be able to be resisted successfully.
If a brain finds itself in sparse population, it might be able resist taxes if all its neighbors do and strange human actors such as bandits/raiders are more of threat.
My thought on the difference between rural and urban political beliefs is:
The denser the population, the more pressing and pervasive the problem of externalities is. In blunt terms, when you're out in the country, everyone can pretty much "do their own thing" without much conflict, but in a dense urban area, you feel much more impact from much more trivial actions of others.
-In the country, people can paint their houses ugly colors and it's largely ignorable, but in the city, a large, ugly building will be in constant view of lots of people.
-In the country, land can be cleanly divided in terms of ownership, but in the city, millions of people will need "usage rights" in many more common resources.
-The "nobody knows each other" effect in the city removes many of the social mechanisms built up to contain selfishness.
For people living on their own in the wilderness with no neighbours for miles, perhaps. But both small town America and rural England are known for everyone knowing everyone else's business and their oppressive atmospheres for those who do not fit in, and even for those who do. For many people from those backgrounds, moving to the big city is a liberating experience.
This is an interesting thought. It's not a plausible evo-psych model, but maybe there is some frame other than evo psych that can be found as an explanation for some obsolete memes or behavioral patterns.
Agreed it is not quite a plausible model as it stands. There are quite a few examples of behaviour changes based on population density from animals, so some human behaviour might be echos of this. Exacerbated by memes etc.
I would have thought that in areas with more humans (like cities), human threats (thieves etc) would be more of a problem than in sparsely populated areas.
Thieves are livable with. People who steal your livelihood and women less so. Think pick pockets vs tribal warfare. Even burglary is minor compared to that.
This doesn't happen in cities?
(When I wrote "thieves etc", the "etc" was specifically intended to avoid limiting the scope of reference to pickpockets, and instead to indicate the general problem of "other humans wanting what you have".)
Ever heard of gang violence?
But let's leave the specific examples of bad things aside, and focus on the general claim you have made. You have said that human threats are more of a problem where there are fewer humans than where there are more humans. Surely you have to concede that that is implausible, or at least counterintuitive, on its face.
Cities mean a higher density of criminals and targets, in equal proportion, so all else equal the probability of being targeted should remain about the same; but it also means authorities and witnesses are closer. In a city, you can scream for help and expect people to come; in a rural setting, you can't.
The more people you come across, the more likely you are to run into someone bad; and this doesn't even take into account what can happen when people -- thus in particular bad people -- get together in groups.
It's possible that the nice-ifying effects of large populations on human behavior could cancel out the bad effects. But it's not obvious that they do -- and it's certainly not obvious that the former exceed the latter. The default presumption would be that people who live in ancestral-type environments face a variety of threats, both human and natural; and that as people move into larger population centers, the threats they face become less natural and more human.