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Lumifer comments on Succeess depends on finding a balance between "geek" and "jock" - Less Wrong
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I think you need to remember that "us geeks" are outliers, a tail of the distribution. For some things that's too far out of the mainstream and moving back towards the center would be useful. For comparison look at the other tail -- impulsive, not too smart, hold-mah-beer-and-watch-this people. Their "free fitness points" are in becoming more thoughtful, in reflecting more on themselves and the world, etc.
Having said that, I think that in specific cases -- particularly Russia under Stalin -- there was a significant enough culling of the population to affect the gene pool. Dumb and obedient people survived, smart and active did not.
Smart and obedient? Dumb and active?.. Just let them interbreed.
I don't know enough about Russia under Stalin. I can believe that passivity was a good strategy, but how about knowing how to manipulate the system, if only in small ways?
My impression is that periodic purges made any kind of success dangerous -- the best survival strategy was just to keep your head down and not stick out in any way.