Eastern culture seems too big a term. What do you think is cooperative in Chinese culture? The whole point of the Chinese imperial ruling system post-Qin is to make sure people don’t cooperate to secure the emperor’s rule. It worked wonders for two millennia. Then the totalitarian Leninist system perfected it with modern technology, party organization and propaganda. The modern mainland Chinese people cooperate because there is a powerful central government pushing. Random people have minimal trust towards one another for cooperation. Yes we build power plants and highspeed rails. But we also quarantine cities and abort fetuses en mass and engineer famines with the same system. It’s cooperation with totalitarian characteristics.
In China at least the equivalence of WWI and WWII was basically the Warring States period (around 400-200BC), where tons of people die, therefore generally a strong dislike for war in Chinese culture. I always thought that WWII created a similar feeling in at least Europe.
There were other periods also of disunity in China, and consequently tons of people ended up dying as well. I'm sure it's similar with e.g. Japan where they had their own "three kingdoms" period.
“The polder model (Dutch: poldermodel) is a method of consensus decision-making, based on the Dutch version of consensus-based economic and social policymaking in the 1980s and 1990s. It gets its name from the Dutch word (polder) for tracts of land enclosed by dikes.
[…]
A third explanation refers to a unique aspect of the Netherlands, that it consists in large part of polders, land reclaimed from the sea, which requires constant pumping and maintenance of the dykes. Ever since the Middle Ages, when the process of land reclamation began, different societies living in the same polder have been forced to cooperate because without unanimous agreement on shared responsibility for maintenance of the dykes and pumping stations, the polders would have flooded and everyone would have suffered. Crucially, even when different cities in the same polder were at war, they still had to cooperate in this respect. This is thought to have taught the Dutch to set aside differences for a greater purpose.”
This is one of the things that makes sci-fi stories set on Moon and Mars colonies more interesting than generic space opera with abundant/unexplained resourcing.
Unfortunately the Moon/Mars genre has been tainted by Heinlein’s “Moon is a Harsh Mistress” which recognized this question and solved it by making everyone a true libertarian who would rather nobly suffocate than steal air. When a criminal element shows up, it’s a racial stereotype shipped from Earth and the enlightened lunar dwellers simply kick him out and proceed with their zero-crime paradise of private property. Ridiculous book but understandably influential in its era.
This is precisely what happens in the Apple TV series “For All Mankind” an I think it’s a pretty realistic take on how future lunar and Martian settlements would work (either everyone cooperates or everyone is cooked)
Are they, though? Outside of Japan and it's former colonies which they were trying to assimilate into the same culture, Korea and Taiwan. Just a quick look at the road traffic tells a lot about culture being individualistic or cooperative. Or a garbage problem. Or public greenery problem. Basically any social issue where good cooperation is not immediately rewarded and has to be done either out of the goodness of the heart or because a person is capable of long term thinking.
I'm thinking that the real culprit of collaborative culture is the historic bidirectional relations between the high ruler of the land and his vassals, and same down the chain. If the rule was absolute and one directional (down) throughout most of the land history, then there is not much chance that collaborative culture may develop at the lower levels. And if there was a bidirectional relations, even very limited, if rulers weren't almighty but sometimes had their own responsibilities towards subjects, then the collaborative culture had a higher chance to evolve.
I don't think this sort of analysis works. Cooperation in one area doesn't necessarily indicate cooperative behavior in another. Anyone who has skied in Europe and the US and seen the absolute anarchy and chaos of a European lift "line" can tell you that.
Growing up, my American-addled brain could not comprehend putting the "good of others" above my own empowerment. The focus on the individual (me, I suppose) was a thing I was, for some reason, proud of about the U.S. (or perhaps "the West" by extension?).
Only as an adult, with a wife, kids (and perhaps a better perspective of the world?) did I realize how foolish I was growing up. And I see more and more how we, as a nation, constantly pay the price for that mindset.
Naive self-interest is a characteristic of children.
You didn't stumble upon some ancient wisdom of another culture, you just matured and established a family, which your instincts tell you to put before yourself.
The West is individualistic, but all that means is that individuals choose their circle of concern. Without any further guidance, that means that innate instincts about who is important (family, close friends) dominate, rather than a forced narrative about the collective.
Not the "West", obsessive single minded individualism is a US characteristic. All other western nations (read: Europe) realize that there is significant value to society and that to achieve things we need to work as a group.
Kids have very little agency to begin with, so looking out for #1 is a fully rational strategy from their POV. As an adult, you grow a lot more comfortable with your situation and it becomes natural to "expand the circle of concern" beyond oneself.
I think it has more to do with agency than age except that agency increases with age.
Look at prisoners, people dependent upon disability, people in authoritarian societies, you see all the same stuff. They're just more tactful about it because they're adults.
Kids do think about others and cooperate, they do have natural empathy and care too. A lot more in cooperative cultures where they are taught to be like that. Less in individualistic cultures where they are taught to not be empathetic. Even within West, there is range of individualism. Netherland is different then USA and both are different then Spain.
It is not just instinct that makes some people (including kids) dominant, it is also that they are being actively taught to act like that. The natural thing is for parents to teach kids own values, both in a planned and conscious way and in the "by the way" style.
I always heard that individualism is centric to the American mind, but on the other hand, I found that American interests groups (corporations especially) are very good at "hunting" in a group. I talked to some mid-level policy-maker friends in China and they recognize that the American corporations are very good at working as a "wolf pack", while the Chinese ones usually fight each other -- you can see examples in Huawei versus Zhongxing when both are competing in foreign markets.
I made fun of the 'America First' campaign slogan and referred to it as 'America Only'.
Then you can quickly use this idea on people who put themselves in front of others. And the reality is it's not about being first, rather it's only about them, not what comes after them.
However, complaints about this always ring hollow because it’s constantly tied to a political goal.
“Americans are so individualistic, they don’t care about climate change.”
For how many Americans don’t care about their credit score, or bank account, or student debt, or local elections, or countless other things directly immediately affecting their lives, that’s not the case. It’s more that humans A) are bad at caring about the future and B) don’t trust scientists for any number of reasons they wouldn’t trust any other human meaning C) the only way to change this is to convince them, not lecture them, just like any other group that wants power, because no group is intrinsically special regarding human communication.
Honestly, having spent a lot of time in Korea (which famously grew so much rice that visitors from Japan and China from the 16th century were astounded by their bounty of food), I disagree with the premise..
Queueing discipline is non-existent; people will take what they want without waiting for others who arrived first. Business standards for fair dealing are just as bad if not worse than many western societies. Family/personal connections are favored and nepotism is rampant. Driving behavior is extremely selfish and causes a lot of accidents (running red lights, default behavior at uncontrolled intersections, etc). Their problems with concentration of money and power are just as bad if not worse than the west with chaebols essentially above the law and abusing their workers to the extent that people have no time for families - so What makes Asian societies more “cooperative?” Is it just their attitude that they think they are more cooperative?
caste system will likely never die in India. I once even joked to my friend that one day when Indians will start accepting gay marriages they would post a matrimonial ad something along these lines - "Looking for an intelligent, well-behaved, educated, fair coloured gay groom for our son (Brahmin only)".
Worth remembering that many felt the same about male friends saying "I love you" between each other was seen the same way just like 2-3 decades ago, that it'll never be socially acceptable. We had a transition period where it was "required" to add ", no homo" at the end, but today seems like most men are comfortable saying it to each other as friends without adding that disclaimer.
Big progress in just 2-3 decades, so never say never :)
It's very relevant. Untouchables are fairly regularly murdered with the police doing nothing, and scandals breaking regularly about caste based discrimination showing up in US corporations from immigrants even.
Its true. Only problem we avoid speaking such things to westerners is that your left-brained 90IQ liberal arts media picks it up and spins as an anti-brahmin narrative (who are less than 10%) while most perpetrators of such crimes are landholding classes (often grouped as "other backward caste" for political reasons).
I see it as proof that a subcontinent doesn’t necessarily need to be centralized into a single country. Colonization unnecessarily made that happen, and there’s no going back now.
It could be colonization but it would predate the British. The British East India company colonized India in the first place by exploiting the lack of cooperation. At the time, there wasn’t the overwhelming disparity between the countries there is today. Mughal India was one of the gunpowder empires, with the largest military in the world in the late 17th and early 18th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_the_Mughal_Empire. The per-capita GDP gap between India and Britain was only a factor of 2. But India’s vastly large population meant it had about four times the state revenues.
Britain couldn’t have, and didn’t, colonize India the way the Mughals had: through a direct land war. Instead, the British East India company entered into deals with various port cities one by one to establish toe holds. Then in the Battle of Plassey, they overthrew the Nawab with just 750 British soldiers and 2,000 Indian mercenaries against a Mughal army of 50,000. The British persuaded the Mughal generals to defect, and the Nawab, fearing further defections, capitulated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey
Eastern cultures seem better at things like running manufacturing plants too. Any situation where sublimation of the ego can provide better outcomes.
I have my own theory that companies like Samsung and TSMC build plants in western nations primarily to hybridize this culture and avoid falling into certain traps. If Samsung can figure out how to get their American flash and LSI lines to yield the same as the Korean lines, they've probably achieved a more robust manufacturing process.
I spent some time in China working in manufacturing. I remember talking to some of the guys there. As it was explained to me, everything they had, their home, kids school, wife’s job was owned by the employer. Meaning if you lose your job you lose everything. I remember how incredibly difficult was to get things done there, no one wanted to make decisions. That was many years ago, maybe things have changed.
Meh. A hundred years ago, TinkerNews commenters would have observed that Western cultures are obviously better at running manufacturing plants, because at the time the West were where manufacturing happened.
More robust in that if everyone just does their jobs in accordance with process you potentially create process traps and settle into bad local maximums.
You need some number of people with ego to tell you what they really think, be resistant to things they see as bad, etc, etc. Otherwise you will waste untold sums in the time it takes to realize your mistakes they would have told you about a week after you rolled them out.
My region hosts a large Korean manufacturer and to me reality is actually simpler: rank-and-file employees are locals, management is Korean.
Those of my friends who worked for Korean companies generally agree that decision makers are not interested in the local culture beyond whether people belonging to it will accept certain rules.
It so happens that my country has a culture of overwork, so we're compatible enough.
> Any situation where sublimation of the ego can provide better outcomes.
Cooperation has to serve the ego, individual and/or collective, or there will be no cooperation.
Think of it this way: some almost Fascists back in the day knew how that thing would end and/or play out and decided against cooperation.
Enough actual Fascists survived anyway and the narrative and their actions still serve the same conviction. Some are rich and influential and fascist as fuck while others live in delusions.
im sorry but just because theres a social taboo on littering does not mean they are all cooperating. the common man in japan is as much of a wage slave as a western man, they are held captive, they arent cooperating any more than slaves did in 1800s
In my view, it is because if you don't, you die. This isn't merely about the division of labor; it’s about war between nations. The peoples here have endured thousands of years of cycles between violent upheaval and social stability. If you cannot rely on organizational cohesion to weather a crisis, you simply won't survive.
How does this differ from the Middle East? Because our friends in the Middle East have truly 'died off' in waves; many of the peoples who once inhabited those lands have long since been replaced."
> many of the peoples who once inhabited those lands have long since been replaced
That is overstated. "Arab" in a lot of cases is more a cultural moniker than a genetic one. For instance the Palestinians are some of the genetically closest modern populations to the ancient Canaanite remains we've studied.
This is unsurprising. Wholesale genetic replacement basically doesn't exist unless there's a huge plague that kills 90% of the population or something (this happened in the Americas when the Europeans arrived, there are other cases of it in history but it's plenty rare). From an ancestry perspective, populations tend to be derived from the people that were there thousands of years prior; cultures and even elites can spread and migrate and cause huge material changes, but the bulk of the people just stay put.
True, I didn't phrase that perfectly. It is my opinion that climate change poses an even greater threat to the Middle East. It's reaching a point where states and groups can no longer sustain the massive resources required to fuel large-scale warfare like they used to.
Therefore, what I am really getting at is that the sheer intensity of competition in East Asia—particularly those existential social upheavals—is the true catalyst for what we call a 'cooperative' culture.
Eastern culture seems too big a term. What do you think is cooperative in Chinese culture? The whole point of the Chinese imperial ruling system post-Qin is to make sure people don’t cooperate to secure the emperor’s rule. It worked wonders for two millennia. Then the totalitarian Leninist system perfected it with modern technology, party organization and propaganda. The modern mainland Chinese people cooperate because there is a powerful central government pushing. Random people have minimal trust towards one another for cooperation. Yes we build power plants and highspeed rails. But we also quarantine cities and abort fetuses en mass and engineer famines with the same system. It’s cooperation with totalitarian characteristics.
In China at least the equivalence of WWI and WWII was basically the Warring States period (around 400-200BC), where tons of people die, therefore generally a strong dislike for war in Chinese culture. I always thought that WWII created a similar feeling in at least Europe.
There were other periods also of disunity in China, and consequently tons of people ended up dying as well. I'm sure it's similar with e.g. Japan where they had their own "three kingdoms" period.
I see a link with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder_model:
“The polder model (Dutch: poldermodel) is a method of consensus decision-making, based on the Dutch version of consensus-based economic and social policymaking in the 1980s and 1990s. It gets its name from the Dutch word (polder) for tracts of land enclosed by dikes.
[…]
A third explanation refers to a unique aspect of the Netherlands, that it consists in large part of polders, land reclaimed from the sea, which requires constant pumping and maintenance of the dykes. Ever since the Middle Ages, when the process of land reclamation began, different societies living in the same polder have been forced to cooperate because without unanimous agreement on shared responsibility for maintenance of the dykes and pumping stations, the polders would have flooded and everyone would have suffered. Crucially, even when different cities in the same polder were at war, they still had to cooperate in this respect. This is thought to have taught the Dutch to set aside differences for a greater purpose.”
This is one of the things that makes sci-fi stories set on Moon and Mars colonies more interesting than generic space opera with abundant/unexplained resourcing.
Unfortunately the Moon/Mars genre has been tainted by Heinlein’s “Moon is a Harsh Mistress” which recognized this question and solved it by making everyone a true libertarian who would rather nobly suffocate than steal air. When a criminal element shows up, it’s a racial stereotype shipped from Earth and the enlightened lunar dwellers simply kick him out and proceed with their zero-crime paradise of private property. Ridiculous book but understandably influential in its era.
This is precisely what happens in the Apple TV series “For All Mankind” an I think it’s a pretty realistic take on how future lunar and Martian settlements would work (either everyone cooperates or everyone is cooked)
Don't forget the literal deus ex machina in the form of the computer that coordinates everything.
Are they, though? Outside of Japan and it's former colonies which they were trying to assimilate into the same culture, Korea and Taiwan. Just a quick look at the road traffic tells a lot about culture being individualistic or cooperative. Or a garbage problem. Or public greenery problem. Basically any social issue where good cooperation is not immediately rewarded and has to be done either out of the goodness of the heart or because a person is capable of long term thinking.
I'm thinking that the real culprit of collaborative culture is the historic bidirectional relations between the high ruler of the land and his vassals, and same down the chain. If the rule was absolute and one directional (down) throughout most of the land history, then there is not much chance that collaborative culture may develop at the lower levels. And if there was a bidirectional relations, even very limited, if rulers weren't almighty but sometimes had their own responsibilities towards subjects, then the collaborative culture had a higher chance to evolve.
I don't think this sort of analysis works. Cooperation in one area doesn't necessarily indicate cooperative behavior in another. Anyone who has skied in Europe and the US and seen the absolute anarchy and chaos of a European lift "line" can tell you that.
"collaborative culture is the historic bidirectional relations between the high ruler of the land and his vassals, and same down the chain"
Are you suggesting this was the case in parts pre-modern Europe?
Growing up, my American-addled brain could not comprehend putting the "good of others" above my own empowerment. The focus on the individual (me, I suppose) was a thing I was, for some reason, proud of about the U.S. (or perhaps "the West" by extension?).
Only as an adult, with a wife, kids (and perhaps a better perspective of the world?) did I realize how foolish I was growing up. And I see more and more how we, as a nation, constantly pay the price for that mindset.
Naive self-interest is a characteristic of children. You didn't stumble upon some ancient wisdom of another culture, you just matured and established a family, which your instincts tell you to put before yourself.
The West is individualistic, but all that means is that individuals choose their circle of concern. Without any further guidance, that means that innate instincts about who is important (family, close friends) dominate, rather than a forced narrative about the collective.
Not the "West", obsessive single minded individualism is a US characteristic. All other western nations (read: Europe) realize that there is significant value to society and that to achieve things we need to work as a group.
> and that to achieve things we need to work as a group.
yeah, lots of "cooperation" in europe all right. left and right hate each other just as much as they do anywhere else
Kids have very little agency to begin with, so looking out for #1 is a fully rational strategy from their POV. As an adult, you grow a lot more comfortable with your situation and it becomes natural to "expand the circle of concern" beyond oneself.
I think it has more to do with agency than age except that agency increases with age.
Look at prisoners, people dependent upon disability, people in authoritarian societies, you see all the same stuff. They're just more tactful about it because they're adults.
Kids do think about others and cooperate, they do have natural empathy and care too. A lot more in cooperative cultures where they are taught to be like that. Less in individualistic cultures where they are taught to not be empathetic. Even within West, there is range of individualism. Netherland is different then USA and both are different then Spain.
It is not just instinct that makes some people (including kids) dominant, it is also that they are being actively taught to act like that. The natural thing is for parents to teach kids own values, both in a planned and conscious way and in the "by the way" style.
I always heard that individualism is centric to the American mind, but on the other hand, I found that American interests groups (corporations especially) are very good at "hunting" in a group. I talked to some mid-level policy-maker friends in China and they recognize that the American corporations are very good at working as a "wolf pack", while the Chinese ones usually fight each other -- you can see examples in Huawei versus Zhongxing when both are competing in foreign markets.
I made fun of the 'America First' campaign slogan and referred to it as 'America Only'.
Then you can quickly use this idea on people who put themselves in front of others. And the reality is it's not about being first, rather it's only about them, not what comes after them.
However, complaints about this always ring hollow because it’s constantly tied to a political goal.
“Americans are so individualistic, they don’t care about climate change.”
For how many Americans don’t care about their credit score, or bank account, or student debt, or local elections, or countless other things directly immediately affecting their lives, that’s not the case. It’s more that humans A) are bad at caring about the future and B) don’t trust scientists for any number of reasons they wouldn’t trust any other human meaning C) the only way to change this is to convince them, not lecture them, just like any other group that wants power, because no group is intrinsically special regarding human communication.
Honestly, having spent a lot of time in Korea (which famously grew so much rice that visitors from Japan and China from the 16th century were astounded by their bounty of food), I disagree with the premise..
Queueing discipline is non-existent; people will take what they want without waiting for others who arrived first. Business standards for fair dealing are just as bad if not worse than many western societies. Family/personal connections are favored and nepotism is rampant. Driving behavior is extremely selfish and causes a lot of accidents (running red lights, default behavior at uncontrolled intersections, etc). Their problems with concentration of money and power are just as bad if not worse than the west with chaebols essentially above the law and abusing their workers to the extent that people have no time for families - so What makes Asian societies more “cooperative?” Is it just their attitude that they think they are more cooperative?
The Indian subcontinent also mostly farms rice but doesn’t display effective large scale cooperation or rule following. I wonder why?
Perhaps related to the caste system. Not sure how relevant that still is these days.
caste system will likely never die in India. I once even joked to my friend that one day when Indians will start accepting gay marriages they would post a matrimonial ad something along these lines - "Looking for an intelligent, well-behaved, educated, fair coloured gay groom for our son (Brahmin only)".
Worth remembering that many felt the same about male friends saying "I love you" between each other was seen the same way just like 2-3 decades ago, that it'll never be socially acceptable. We had a transition period where it was "required" to add ", no homo" at the end, but today seems like most men are comfortable saying it to each other as friends without adding that disclaimer.
Big progress in just 2-3 decades, so never say never :)
It's very relevant. Untouchables are fairly regularly murdered with the police doing nothing, and scandals breaking regularly about caste based discrimination showing up in US corporations from immigrants even.
Its true. Only problem we avoid speaking such things to westerners is that your left-brained 90IQ liberal arts media picks it up and spins as an anti-brahmin narrative (who are less than 10%) while most perpetrators of such crimes are landholding classes (often grouped as "other backward caste" for political reasons).
Probably because colonialism screwed it all up
Doubtful. It has been a series of kingdoms and fiefdoms in internecine conflict since time immemorial.
I see it as proof that a subcontinent doesn’t necessarily need to be centralized into a single country. Colonization unnecessarily made that happen, and there’s no going back now.
[dead]
Could it be that they were colonized by Britain?
(I'm not sure if this is what you were insinuating, but it would make sense)
It could be colonization but it would predate the British. The British East India company colonized India in the first place by exploiting the lack of cooperation. At the time, there wasn’t the overwhelming disparity between the countries there is today. Mughal India was one of the gunpowder empires, with the largest military in the world in the late 17th and early 18th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_the_Mughal_Empire. The per-capita GDP gap between India and Britain was only a factor of 2. But India’s vastly large population meant it had about four times the state revenues.
Britain couldn’t have, and didn’t, colonize India the way the Mughals had: through a direct land war. Instead, the British East India company entered into deals with various port cities one by one to establish toe holds. Then in the Battle of Plassey, they overthrew the Nawab with just 750 British soldiers and 2,000 Indian mercenaries against a Mughal army of 50,000. The British persuaded the Mughal generals to defect, and the Nawab, fearing further defections, capitulated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey
> The British East India company colonized India in the first place by exploiting the lack of cooperation.
nah, they used guns and cannons.... force. same as any conqueror ever.
The British took India from the Marathi empire, not from the Mughals.
Hong Kong was colonized by Britain, doing just fine now. The Mughal invasions were probably the biggest adverse shock.
Based on the history of the region the opposite seems like a better assumption to me.
Eastern cultures seem better at things like running manufacturing plants too. Any situation where sublimation of the ego can provide better outcomes.
I have my own theory that companies like Samsung and TSMC build plants in western nations primarily to hybridize this culture and avoid falling into certain traps. If Samsung can figure out how to get their American flash and LSI lines to yield the same as the Korean lines, they've probably achieved a more robust manufacturing process.
I spent some time in China working in manufacturing. I remember talking to some of the guys there. As it was explained to me, everything they had, their home, kids school, wife’s job was owned by the employer. Meaning if you lose your job you lose everything. I remember how incredibly difficult was to get things done there, no one wanted to make decisions. That was many years ago, maybe things have changed.
Meh. A hundred years ago, TinkerNews commenters would have observed that Western cultures are obviously better at running manufacturing plants, because at the time the West were where manufacturing happened.
More robust in that it tolerates individualistic workers? Interesting.
More robust in that if everyone just does their jobs in accordance with process you potentially create process traps and settle into bad local maximums.
You need some number of people with ego to tell you what they really think, be resistant to things they see as bad, etc, etc. Otherwise you will waste untold sums in the time it takes to realize your mistakes they would have told you about a week after you rolled them out.
I dont know that they even need to get the same yield to get the benefits, even as low as 80% of the productivity would get you the benefits.
My region hosts a large Korean manufacturer and to me reality is actually simpler: rank-and-file employees are locals, management is Korean.
Those of my friends who worked for Korean companies generally agree that decision makers are not interested in the local culture beyond whether people belonging to it will accept certain rules.
It so happens that my country has a culture of overwork, so we're compatible enough.
> Any situation where sublimation of the ego can provide better outcomes.
Cooperation has to serve the ego, individual and/or collective, or there will be no cooperation.
Think of it this way: some almost Fascists back in the day knew how that thing would end and/or play out and decided against cooperation.
Enough actual Fascists survived anyway and the narrative and their actions still serve the same conviction. Some are rich and influential and fascist as fuck while others live in delusions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story
listen, every weeb on here knows japan = culture of respect, forgetting the rampant racism, the tentacle porn etc
im sorry but just because theres a social taboo on littering does not mean they are all cooperating. the common man in japan is as much of a wage slave as a western man, they are held captive, they arent cooperating any more than slaves did in 1800s
X (formerly twitter)-tier generalization.
It’s an NPR article about a peer-reviewed academic study. It’s the exact opposite of Twitter.
In my view, it is because if you don't, you die. This isn't merely about the division of labor; it’s about war between nations. The peoples here have endured thousands of years of cycles between violent upheaval and social stability. If you cannot rely on organizational cohesion to weather a crisis, you simply won't survive.
How does this differ from the Middle East? Because our friends in the Middle East have truly 'died off' in waves; many of the peoples who once inhabited those lands have long since been replaced."
> many of the peoples who once inhabited those lands have long since been replaced
That is overstated. "Arab" in a lot of cases is more a cultural moniker than a genetic one. For instance the Palestinians are some of the genetically closest modern populations to the ancient Canaanite remains we've studied.
This is unsurprising. Wholesale genetic replacement basically doesn't exist unless there's a huge plague that kills 90% of the population or something (this happened in the Americas when the Europeans arrived, there are other cases of it in history but it's plenty rare). From an ancestry perspective, populations tend to be derived from the people that were there thousands of years prior; cultures and even elites can spread and migrate and cause huge material changes, but the bulk of the people just stay put.
True, I didn't phrase that perfectly. It is my opinion that climate change poses an even greater threat to the Middle East. It's reaching a point where states and groups can no longer sustain the massive resources required to fuel large-scale warfare like they used to. Therefore, what I am really getting at is that the sheer intensity of competition in East Asia—particularly those existential social upheavals—is the true catalyst for what we call a 'cooperative' culture.
[dead]