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> cooperation, empathy, industry, invention, efficiency, etc. A frivolous, impulsive, unintelligent people seeking immediate gratification ...

Are these things that can be naturally selected for?

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You stopped reading just shy of your answer:

>...would not have survived the winter.

What I mean is, it's not clear that those traits are sufficiently genetic in basis for natural selection to occur. There may be more of a cultural incentive to encourage those traits.

Of course there's a strong genetic component. For an extreme demonstration, no amount of cultural pressure is going to prompt the emergence of these attributes in a population of watermelons or earthworms.

I agree that you need to code for some level of intelligence in the first place. But I think you need to go further and show that there is genetically-driven variation in those traits among humans. Otherwise it may be that the variation is due to socialisation or epigenetic factors.

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