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by gobdovan
122 days ago
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> The risks of highly correlated vulnerabilities are on top of that. For small groups, it doesn't matter too much if it's correlated or not. A 'small' hit doesn't exist, so 20% or 80% is a wipe-out either way. You don't have big population dynamics, you can't take even a 20% hit to your population as a small group. Even if you'd have the genetic diversity of modern humans, your population would still be damned (my 2-3 females gone example, it's an extinction vortex [0]) > Variants of the flu continue to quietly emerge and kill people today. Despite all our regular exposures to their constant churn and weather shielded environments. Flu is specifically adapted to exactly what you point out. Check out virulence in doors vs out doors for influenza. Also, it's precisely regular exposures that allows influenza to persist, as it has a rapid mutation rate, and it benefits from as much exposure to humans as well. There is no evidence for Flu before the Neolithic, precisely because the flu is adapted to constant exposure to an inter-connected population, requiring a critical community size in the hundreds of thousands. [0] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article/290/2011/202... |
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After all, as much as cross over illnesses are orders of magnitude more dangerous, they are also orders of magnitude reduced in threat distribution, for any low population species.
The integrated surface x time surface area for transfer just isn't there. Lots of low population species last millions of years, or tens. And even then, die off for other reasons. despite their extreme and persistent low-diversity vulnerability to any successful cross over parasite/illness. Neanderthals are not exceptional on that count.
To be clear, I am agreeing with you (and me!).