The return of the Jedi - how the force “O” evolved

This is my most hypothetical post so far. Therefore I love to give it a geeky fiction title.  This post rests on the assumption that some people have more hunter-gatherer genetic heritage than others which has been largely preserved via assortative mating throughout the past 10.000 millennia.

The story so far: The Jedi, er, hunter-gatherers were defeated by the Sith, er farmers around 10-000 years ago. Many Jedi were driven to extinction, some found refuge in the remote corners of our planet (Australia, Africa, remote places in Russia and Japan) and some were simply assimilated into the empire, making up the lowest class in the hierarchy, serving as farm labourers and slaves.

Upper class: early farmers (SJ)	king, priests, landowners
Middle class: pastoralists (SP)	warriors, artisans, merchants
Lower class: hunter-gatherers (N)	labourers, slaves

This situation continued for several thousands of years and then suddenly cities started to be built as well as elaborate structures, like the pyramids. Where did the architects come from? Those were clearly planners with visions. We know that early farmers were planners, contrary to pastoralists and hunter-gatherers who lived firmly in the present.  However, farmers were planners, not visionaries. A new kind of personality type had evolved: NJ - planning hunter-gatherers (btw: INTJs are called “architects” in the Myers-Briggs typology). The Jedi had returned with an evolved form of the force.  Not only did they design the pyramids, but they also brought back hunter-gatherer values like egalitarianism by abolishing hierarchy among deities and bringing one loving monotheistic god instead (Amon-Ra the god of the new testament. In Greece, they brought democracy and philosophy. In Mesopotamia writing.

Why should low ranking hunter-gatherers have achieved all those innovations rather than high-ranking farmers? Because the Jedi had a secret weapon: the Force. It is also known as intuition or “openness to ideas”.  As “openness to ideas” is the only concept that is scientifically acknowledged I will stick with it. O correlates with high intelligence. We know that Ashkenazi Jews have high levels of O, and they have earned more than 20% of all Nobel Prizes.

What is this magic power O? It is part of the Big 5 personality trait inventory. It is the first trait that disappears when studying diverse cultures that have less than Big 5 personality traits. Why should hunter-gatherers have evolved higher levels of O than farmers or pastoralists? The answer is natural selection, or social selection, or the culling of hunter-gatherers.  Being on the bottom rung of the hierarchy they had the highest mortality rates and the strongest selection pressures. Being on top of the hierarchy slowed down natural selection as inherited genes often played a less important role in reproduction than inherited wealth.  

Many hunter-gatherers remained at the bottom of the social hierarchy, but those who rose to the top wrote history (and some who didn't, like Sokrates). They wrote the American declaration of independence and invented the Internet.

Nowadays you can find them scattered through all classes and walks of life. The Jedi have returned. But they are in danger of going extinct.

Markus Jokela (2012) has found in a study that

Higher levels of openness to experience in both sexes and higher levels of conscientiousness in women were associated with lower fertility [...]

This has been true before the 60s, but the effect has become stronger since the availability of the contraception pill. These very same architects (NJs = openness and conscientiousness) that designed the pyramids are having fewer children.

Read more in my book:

The rare Myers-Briggs types - why introverted intuitives are an endangered species