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i always thought that it was the greater volume of humans, the greater the genetic diversity
There's barely any pressure to extinguish "bad" traits, though.
If you're the idiot who eats every berry you can find, cavemen can't save you and your genes disappear. Modern medicine can and will save you, so you can create offspring and the berryeaters keep their proud heritage alive.
Now, what is considered "good" or "bad" is of course highly debatable, but currently we have effectively no survival pressure, the only selection is how many children you get.
But that if that "idiot" does propagate, but so does everyone else, no skin off the species back. If the selective pressure returns, well then the others keep going.
OG Luci is right, though. There are far more people due to modern medicine. So if we suddenly lose it, there will be a lot of death. But there is more population and diversity to draw from the survivors. So I don't think it's a threat to the species.
Exactly, even if 7 billion people died, well there's still a billion people. If 99% of people died, well there are still millions.
Well, that's a type of pressure. Ogg the berry lover could well have passed on his genes.
For a long time we've largely been selecting for intelligence and social abilities.