[A_D_E_P_T]

Point #2 ("somewhat less fit... on average") is totally inaccurate if the parents are statistically average in the modern/Western world. It's accurate if the parents are extraordinary, in which case all children will likely be less extraordinary. It may be accurate in conditions of high infant mortality.

I'm not sure if point #29 is supposed to be a joke. If it's a joke, it's in exceedingly poor taste. Polybius had it figured out more than two thousand years ago: Democracy is an unstable cyclical thing, and nothing to celebrate. If you want proof of this statement, look around you.

[kakacik]

Too harsh on democracy, literally everything else is much worse. Attested by enormous suffering of tens of billions humans before or now who could only dream of freedoms like you have here, criticizing it openly without mortal fear of repressions on you and your loved ones.

The worst thing out there are those arrogant folks who think they know better than everybody else and go and try to create some sort of (self-centered) utopia, based on flawed expectations who we humans are, ignoring basic human traits we all share like selfishness. The more anybody tries to stick out of grand design and forge their own way (or even god forbid criticize), the harsher they are put down to not spoil the paradise.

I'd take democracy and freedom with corresponding risks and rewards any day over that.

[A_D_E_P_T]

Peak Whig History. You may want to consider whether you're mistaking temporary anomalies for permanent truths. A review of history illustrates that democracy is simply the mechanism by which the merchant class destroys the traditional aristocracy. It is a transitionary phase, not a permanent state. It will inevitably transition to mob rule or oligarchy -- and you can see this all around you! Answer me this: If "democracy" is so great, why is it that every Western political establishment is terrified of direct democracy and plebiscites?

Ancient Greek-style democracy -- where every citizen votes on every important issue -- can now be implemented in the US and any European country, with ease. It's not like we don't have the technology. Why do we need corrupt intermediaries? To simplify things a bit, it is because we're going to get oligarchy or ochlocracy, and the oligarchs want to make sure they're on the winning team, whereas direct democracy is a path to ochlocracy within a mere handful of years.

The Ancients knew all of this, of course.

All that said, a state's form of government has very little (in some cases nothing) to do with that state's ability to benefit from material progress.

It's a real laugh to suggest that our ancestors were "suffering enormously" on account of the fact that they were ruled by a feudal lord who descended from his mountain fortress once a year to collect taxes in the form of a handful or two of grain. Our ancestors had a place, a duty, a strong faith, and a connection to their superiors and inferiors. Large families, festivals and feast days, homes full of music. On balance, they were probably happier than modern man.

[kakacik]

Your whole post is literally false with single word - Switzerland.

As for the suffering - I grew up in communism, or socialism, or whatever you want to label it, behind iron curtain. There was some child-like naivety in population, you can personally call it something positive but I do not. The rest - oppression from all angles, erasure of individualism, sometimes outright murder by system. This is reality of alternatives I talk about.

The medieval fairy tale you are getting from maybe some children's book wasn't true anywhere in Europe, that's pretty much guaranteed. Half of kids died before reaching 5, child births were often fatal for mothers so men had often multiple wives out of practicality. Tooth infections, appendix or flu were killing those older left and right, everybody smelled horribly due to simply not washing at all, had fleas and other parasites and infections. Those folks suffered in ways we can't even imagine, lived short lives full of hard work and often died of causes we simply don't experience anymore. Marriage around 14-15 with first child on the way right after was the norm.

> On balance, they were probably happier than modern man.

You don't know that, nobody knows and its not even comparable. Its true that if you are semi-constantly in survival situations and one bad crop will kill everybody you don't have energy to ponder on larger topics. You can easily create it on your own today if you want, nobody is stopping you.

[Anamon]

As a lifelong Swiss, I also wanted to post that :)

Direct democracy has been working out pretty darn well for us, for a pretty long time now. The system may seem slow and tedious sometimes, but it's probably mainly responsible for why it seems much less susceptible to the polarisation, demagoguery and authoritarianism we see rising all around us. It's not perfect and a constant work in progress, but I don't know of any other system that has a better track record of ensuring long-term social cohesion and stability.

As for medieval life, I keep remembering an interview with a medical historian. They said that you could imagine it a bit as the reverse of today's mode where most people are usually fine, but occasionally get sick. Back in those days, having some sort of ailment was pretty much the default, and people felt exceedingly lucky to be genuinely healthy for a few weeks.

[lycopodiopsida]

> a strong faith

laughing in Marx

> Large families, festivals and feast days, homes full of music.

You may want to visit an open museum about a peasant life. It was all but a festival with homes "full of music".

[mlyle]

> Point #2 ("somewhat less fit... on average") is totally inaccurate if the parents are statistically average in the modern/Western world.

I wonder if you've misunderstood the point. Offspring are expected to be less fit on average because -things can go wrong- (mutations, birth defects, etc). But selection is a counterweight to this.

[A_D_E_P_T]

Seemed to me that the author was referring to regression to the mean, as another commenter noted.

De novo mutations have a negative effect, to be sure, but it is extremely weak on an individual level. In parents who are extraordinary, the effect of regression to the mean is going to be 20x to 40x stronger than the effect of de novo mutations. For instance, if you have two parents who are both 195cm tall, the regression penalty might be 4cm, whereas the mutation penalty would be somewhere in the millimeters, so a statistically average child would be ~190.9cm. If both parents are statistically average, there'd be no regression penalty and only a vanishingly small mutation penalty.

[mlyle]

Author was explicitly not--

> That if you’re a life form and you cook up a baby and copy your genes to them, you’ll find that the genes have been degraded due to oxidative stress et al., which isn’t cause for celebration, but if you find some other hopefully-hot person and randomly swap in half of their genes, your baby will still be somewhat less fit ...

You're right that it's a relatively weak effect-- which is a good part of why the effects of variance and selection (incl sexual selection) win out and fitness doesn't decline with each generation.