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Ron Unz has argued that the Chinese people went through an evolutionary process similar to, but more extreme than, the one Gregory Clark has described for the English, i.e., the lower classes suffered from negative population growth and were continually replenished by the demographic surplus of higher classes:

"In many respects, Moise’s demographic analysis of China eerily anticipated that of Clark for England, as he pointed out that only the wealthier families of a Chinese village could afford the costs associated with obtaining wives for their sons, with female infanticide and other factors regularly ensuring up to a 15 percent shortfall in the number of available women. Thus, the poorest village strata usually failed to reproduce at all, while poverty and malnourishment also tended to lower fertility and raise infant mortality as one moved downward along the economic gradient. "

‘How could any man in our village claim that his family had been poor for three generations? If a man is poor, then his son can’t afford to marry; and if his son can’t marry, there can’t be a third generation.’

https://www.ronunz.org/2013/03/10/how-social-darwinism-made-modern-china/

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Were there differences in how wealth was produced between historic Europe and China?

For example, primarily through large estate agriculture and small (family) scale agriculture. Similarly, between inter kingdom trade and small scale merchants.

As such, I'm curious to know what the relative impact of metropolitan vs rural life was. ie what were the respective proportions of metropolitan and rural populations for historic Europe and China?

In Europe, I gather, of those living in cities the relatively more wealthy were more able to avoid disease (infantile deaths?) by temporarily relocating to the countryside during outbreaks. Was this the case for the larger (and more enduring) historic cities of China?

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Beginning in the late Middle Ages, the economic environment was much more dynamic in Europe than in China. The market economy was replacing older modes of production, with the result that markets were becoming not only larger but also more elastic. Among entrepreneurs, differences in economic success were becoming greater, and were readily translated into differences in reproductive success (Note: before the rise of factory capitalism, entrepreneurs relied primarily on their families as their workforce, and successful ones would expand their workforce by marrying earlier, having more children, and helping them marry earlier).

This expansion of the market economy had no counterpart in China or anywhere else in the non-European world. The economic environment was much more static in China, if not stagnant. Differences in economic success among entrepreneurs were small and produced equally small differences in reproductive success. As a result, mean cognitive ability increased more slowly.

I hesitate to say more because a research team is studying ancient DNA from China, specifically alleles associated with cognitive ability. We will soon know a lot more about cognitive evolution in that country. I suspect that China's cognitive evolution was slower but more sustained, with fewer periods of regression.

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I think this selection mechanism is still happening today. The one child policy and preference for sons means that there are more men than women. Only successful men with money can afford to marry and procreate. While women are hypergamous everywhere, the gender imbalance takes the selection process to an extreme.

The giant housing bubble that they're popping right now is due in part because men have to buy houses in order to get wives. No house, no wife.

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Selection cannot exist without variation in reproductive success. In present-day China, the range of reproductive success is highly constrained. Very few Han Chinese manage to reach even the level of replacement fertility.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FiGedFAXkAEHPWu.jpg:large

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Fascinating angle on Confucian society. A few niggles:

1. "Confucianism is one of the oldest and most influential political philosophies in the world"? Much closer to political science than political philosophy, surely.

2. "preference for sons and, in combination with the One-Child Policy, led to the selective abortion of females and a serious sexual imbalance in the population”. There were 2-3 illegal abortions and no serious sexual imbalance. The latter myth disappeared with 'ghost cities' after 50 million girls, whose births had not been registered, were in school, after the Dept of Ed did a nationwide census.

3. After massive attacks on Confucianism—seen as outmoded, stifling and conservative—from the 1919 May Fourth Movement.."? The attacks were verbal and directed at faux-Confucian customs. Mao, a huge fan, could quote entire books of of Master Kong's. Mao Thought is simply the reification of Confucius' dàtóng society.

4. "Mao Zedong’s catastrophic Cultural Revolution" was, for China's Ninety Percent, a brilliant success that achieved all its goals: after 4,000 years, it liberated 400,000,000 illiterate peasants and taught them to read, write, vote and care for their health. While continuing to grow the economy 6.5% annually throughout that tumultuous decade.

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> 4. "Mao Zedong’s catastrophic Cultural Revolution" was, for China's Ninety Percent, a brilliant success

This is the natural economic growth of a newly industrializing nation. It occurred despite Mao's chaos, not because of it.

Calling Mao a brilliant success is akin to calling "beating the shit out of your child for 10 years straight" a "brilliant success" because your child grew by 50cm in the meantime.

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"As the world’s most populous country and a scientific superpower, not least in the field of biotechnology, China is an important nation to watch in understanding our continued evolutionary trajectory."

Indeed, I agree. If China is wise, it will conduct research in psychometrics to determine the genetic influence on positive human traits and use the data for genetic enhancement. Sadly, it appears the United States is not doing such research. It is my belief such action would go far in the ascension of humanity.

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