[FRIAM] Few of you ...

[Marcus Daniels]

Steve writes:

   < My own experience with mob-behaviour is that there is something about
     *my* behaviour/instincts/breeding that has me avoiding mob behaviour. >

When it was a matter of survival to have a pack for food and defense, it is not hard to see how a preference for membership in pack would be bred-in.    But there could also be a niche for individuals that bridged multiple groups, like traders.    Part of being able to bridge groups is not getting too involved in the pathologies of any one of them.   Standoffishness could have an evolutionary benefit as well, or there could be a predisposition for learning that would give an evolutionary advantage to those that modulated the tendency to be a joiner.   In generations past, the crazy parents yelling at coaches and refs could have been warriors and even dominant in some tribes.    I think of the reactionary voters as being kind like that -- the big fish in the little pond.   Their crude impulses worked in an environment with little risk, but at some point they become targets for the bigger alpha dog.  

Marcus