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C00002 00002	emigra[f81,jmc]		instincts for emigration and conflict
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emigra[f81,jmc]		instincts for emigration and conflict

1981 dec 5 after conversation with Jack Alpert

1. Sight of squashed frogs on the AI Lab parking lot suggested that
the frog god would design frogs so that whenever a frog pond got
prosperous, the excess energy would go into emigration.  Frogs would
hop across country until they either died or found another frog pond.
A species of frog that did this would dominate a species that didn't
even if 999 out of 1000 emigrants died.

2. However, such a simple emigration instinct would be selected against,
since almost all emigrants die.
On the other hand, an instinct to drive out other frogs would be selected
for as well as benefitting the species.  It would seem that an
instinct to drive out one's own surplus offspring and one's own
brothers and sisters would be optimal, since this would spread the gene.

3. A Scientific American article mentioned that mice confined to
a two acre plot reached and sustained a larger population than
when the mice were unconfined.  When unconfined the population was
relieved by the emigration of young pregnant females.  If there were
mice all over immigrants would equal emigrants, and if immigrants
were allowed to survive, the population would grow as much as if
the population were confined.  Therefore, we must conclude that
either the areas to which emigration is directed are mostly unsuitable
for mice or that most immigrants are not allowed to survive and
raise families.

4. We may imagine that seasonal migration evolved from emigration.

5. Let's apply these ideas to humans.  Most human evolution occurred
during a period when we lived in small groups of gatherers and
hunters with almost no technology and perhaps without much language.
A society that co-operated when times were tough but took advantage
of prosperity to drive out a fraction of young people would put
substantial resources into emigration and would expand at the
expense of more passive peoples.

6. It will be advantageous for the gene pool if the emigrant groups are
inclined to raid and displace other people they encounter.  We could even
imagine that the expansions into Europe of the Celts, Franks and Huns were
driven by such instincts.

7. We can presume that such instincts still exist.  However, in a
modern society they will not operate in a pure form.
People often leave home when they become adults especially if they
aren't recruited into a family business, i.e. when their lives are
most relaxed.  Also groups of young people develop quarrels with
society and emigrate.

8. Perhaps we can attribute the revolutionary tendencies of the 1960s
to distorted forms of these instincts.  Prosperity leads to quarrelsomeness.
However, the tendencies to emigrate and form communes were ineffective,
because modern communication made the separation incomplete and
because the emigrants were not faced with the choice of building
a new society or dying.  The possibility of return was always there
and was usually taken.