[tt] Cultural hitchhiking on the wave of advance of beneficial technologies

[Hughes, James J.]

Could Enlightenment modernity in general, and transhumanism in
particular, be a cultural hitchhiker on emerging technologies? - J.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/short/0702469104v1?rss=1

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0702469104

Cultural hitchhiking on the wave of advance of beneficial technologies

Graeme J. Ackland, Markus Signitzer *, Kevin Stratford *, and Morrel H.
Cohen 

The wave-of-advance model was introduced to describe the spread of
advantageous genes in a population. It can be adapted to model the
uptake of any advantageous technology through a population, such as the
arrival of neolithic farmers in Europe, the domestication of the horse,
and the development of the wheel, iron tools, political organization, or
advanced weaponry. Any trait that preexists alongside the advantageous
one could be carried along with it, such as genetics or language,
regardless of any intrinsic superiority. Decoupling of the advantageous
trait from other "hitchhiking" traits depends on its adoption by the
preexisting population. Here, we adopt a similar wave-of-advance model
based on food production on a heterogeneous landscape with multiple
populations. Two key results arise from geographic inhomogeneity: the
"subsistence boundary," land so poor that the wave of advance is halted,
and the temporary "diffusion boundary" where the wave cannot move into
poorer areas until its gradient becomes sufficiently large. At diffusion
boundaries, farming technology may pass to indigenous people already in
those poorer lands, allowing their population to grow and resist
encroachment by farmers. Ultimately, this adoption of technology leads
to the halt in spread of the hitchhiking trait and establishment of a
permanent "cultural boundary" between distinct cultures with equivalent
technology.