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Notes -
Intelligence actually post-dates "Humanity"'s first invention: Warfare.
You find in tribes of chimps and other primates genocidal wars they commit against each other, murder all the men, take all the women... the exact kinda thing you'll be familiar with if you read the old testament or the Illiad.
This is how most higher primates lived for 100s of thousands of years, and it had an incredible selection effect. Unlike most other mammals or animals in general where dominance competitions are non-lethal feats of strength and fitness, lethal conflict doesn't depend on female selection of the winner, and all kinds of tactics that would be judged "less fit" become available... No female in the wild would choose to be the mate of one suitor over another if that suitor only won the dominance fight with the assistance of three friends... but when you murder the rival suitor she can't choose him.
thus humans incredible investment in brainpower as opposed to the the incredible musculature you see on some animals... when humans are starving the body will consume the muscle mass to keep them alive... but not the brain mass. Hunger, malnutrition even comatose states don't result in extreme Brian wastage the way you get muscle wastage... the brain is that important for reproductive success.
The conflicts of violence and mating are bred into our psyches men are obsessed with war... contact sports, war movies, the history channel, they mesmerize most... likewise women are mesmerized by not just love triangle harlequin romances conflicts... but true crime. Endlessly fascinated, titilated, and entertained by the idea of scandalous conniving romantic murders.
Unlike most modern problems we struggle to direct our attention to.. these problems we find innately endlessly rewarding, because like hunting, fishing, cooking, camping... they activate our ancestral reward centers.
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If intelligence is no longer being selected for, its likely because that competition... or rather that method of competing is blocked off... There is no longer a rewarding contest of arms or conniving plots of murder and romance that predictably result in significantly more reprodution in men, and significantly better mates and resources for the women and offspring... Or atleast not at the higher levels of intelligence.
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