Would space colonies see us develop new ethnicities and physical/mental adaptions to those places?

[DAgent]

A couple of thoughts that occurred to me while reading up on O-Neil cylinders and space wheels as possible homes in the stars, what would happen to how the people there develop? Assuming the gravity in such places are kept to the standard 1G we have on Earth, I can't see much need for adaption as we'll have made the "world" to suit us in those cases. But could simply being in space have some effect that makes us change in some way?

Then there's the idea of ethnicities. I'm pretty sure someone somewhere might try to setup a colony that is only for one specific ethnic group, they might use some creative wrangling of language to try to pretend that's not the way it is, but I can still see it happening. In such a place, would the residents end up going through some sort of ethnic change anyhow, in a similar way to how ancients humans who left Africa millions of years ago, changed and adapted to their new homes and the environmental changes they found there?

I think it goes without saying that a colony filled with people of every ethnicity will end up intermingling and end up with new ethnicities due to that. And I can imagine that after a few generations the cultural expansion will mean they might have a very different take on say art, religion, music, then what their founders had. How much richer in culture would such a colony be?

Then throw in the idea of living on planets, either in sealed environmentally domes, or terraformed worlds, would the same happen there?

 

[Bramandin]

I think that there would be an ethnic melting-pot where some traditions are lost while others are blended. The language would drift, the culture would be its own, you'd have Klingon be a cultural marker instead of a genetic one.

 

[THX1138]

I have a similar situation in my novel. There is an Aliance of some Earth cultures that are just what you are talking about. After 100 years, the united earth forces think that the Aliance has become a waring colony against Earth, (they are not) When they meet, the appearance, language and customs of the Aliance has changed to the point of becoming a new culture. One could say 'Alien' in their own right.

But when you look are cultures even here on earth, we can see this too. Even today you can see it. The Bahamas and the VI's are a good example of culture, language and definite signs of race blending. There are many places on Earth one could study this. But in a space colony, I think it would be an obvious given.

 

[Vladd67]

For an earth example just compare the US with the rest of the world. Originally a colonial possession it has evolved into a society with it's own cultures and beliefs.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think it could depend a lot on how the colonists see themselves and how they want to be. They might end up deliberately not changing, like Victorians in the Raj - however, this probably requires a native population to react against. A war or similar struggle might cause the colonists to deliberately forge their own identity, like post-War of Independence USA or post-WW2 Australia (note that the first is colony v homeland, while the second is after a war where colony and homeland were on the same side but had different priorities). If they feel that they're being picked on or ignored, they will probably create a separate identity faster.

I vaguely remember the TV show of The Expanse giving the Belters distinctive accents, a bit like South Africans. There are plenty of stories where people brought up underground, in space etc suffer from agoraphobia, which might be a distinctive trait of colonists growing up in stations. There might also be odd customs relating to the local environment, like the Fremen spitting to make an agreement more binding. And that's without deliberate genetic modification.

Then there's the idea of ethnicities. I'm pretty sure someone somewhere might try to setup a colony that is only for one specific ethnic group

Humans being what they are, I think this would be very likely, not just in terms of race, but religion, politics, even sex. Such people would probably think of themselves as the new Pilgrim Fathers, but it could easily turn into an inbred tyranny. Which raises the issue of what happens if there isn't enough genetic variance to prevent conditions appearing. I don't know enough about the science of that to really comment.

 

[Wayne Mack]

Due to the spinning nature, people would need to adjust movements based on the direction of travel, they would need to adopt 'sea legs.' This would be even more pronounced with any sort of ball sports. A thrown or rolled bar would curve when thrown at an angle to the direction of spin. A ball thrown in the direction of spin would have a (probably slight) drop to it, while one thrown in the opposite would have a rise. The direction of fields, courts, playing surfaces, etc. would likely need to be specified, else the home team would have a significant home field advantage. Certainly within a generation, people would adapt to these forces and would likely feel unsettled if they returned to Earth.

 

[Swank]

There is no reason a space tube would develop different ethnicities than blended societies like most Western nations already have. Virtually all the ethnic blends you are likely to ever have can be viewed on the street of any metropolitan area today.

There's also little reason that there would be extreme cultural shifts given shared media and instantaneous communication.


And there certainly isn't likely to be any sort of evolution. People have to die before breeding for natural selection to work. If people have an inner ear problem (unlikely on something as large as an O'Neil), they will take drugs for it.


Immunity would be one of the largest issues, as the colonies would likely have quarantine processes to prevent SARS or flu coming aboard. Over time that could be a problem.

 

[Bramandin]

I don't know enough about the science of that to really comment.

I heard about the 50/500 rule, but I imagine it depends on factors like if there is a mutation where they have to decide whether to practice eugenics or learn to deal with it. I think there was a place where descendants of one person were deaf to high-pitched sounds and it wasn't a problem until they tried to watch Mickey Mouse cartoons.

 

[Le Panda du Mal]

I think some of us are thinking about ethnicity as a genetic thing where I would argue language and culture are far more important. For instance, the spread of Arabic language and Islam resulting in disparate ethnic groups in the MENA region becoming "Arabs" over centuries. Likewise many Turks in Turkey today are genetically closer to Greeks or Armenians than to central Asian Turks but that isn't terribly relevant as far as identity goes. I think space colonies would inevitably form separate ethnic identities over time.

 

[Wayne Mack]

Given the smaller population size relative to Earth, I can see a space station peoples evolving into a distinct group relative to Earth-based ethnicities. There may also be a concern about interbreeding. I can also see the challenges of traversing between the cylinders as enough of a issue that each might evolve differently. I also wonder if there is a danger of loss of immunities making travel to Earth risky. Lastly, I could see the evolution of a bacteria or virus that could be near fatal to the community.

 

[Montero]

In the forty ish years Germany was divided into East and West there were divergencies in vocabulary with East gaining Russian words and West Americanisations.

 

[Aknot]

Simple answer: mainly depends on how long they are isolated.

I’m not an biologist but I know enough to say that given enough generations in a new environment - however different from earth - there would be genetic differences. However, most likely an cultural change would be much swifter and, possibly, more significant. In 10,000 years the humans would have adapted in various ways, but still very much be humans. Culturally they could be radically different. 1,000,000 years they would probably have evolved through several stages of “homo” (Homo Astra, or whatever the non-pig Latin version is).

 

[Aknot]

Consider the size of the population as well. Partially for reasons if generic change and diversity, but also survival. For a project I looked up various scientific guesses and they arrived at at least 10,000 people to avoid the risk of catastrophic “failure” for the group. A very possible scenario for an isolated group over a long period of is also extinction…

 

[Robert Zwilling]

The Expanse story ran it with some physical body differences for people born in different places in the solar system, but the attitudes and behaviors were all on the same page, no changes there, probably a good guess. Tastes in the arts might depend more on what is available at the time than anything else. The biggest change would seem to be going back in time, to when a single event could wipe out the entire group, such as an infection that can't be cured.

 

[Swank]

The Expanse story ran it with some physical body differences for people born in different places in the solar system

To be fair, the differences were only due to the amount of gravity different people grew up in and how that affected their bodies and height. It wasn't a genetic thing.

 

[JunkMonkey]

How much richer in culture would such a colony be?

It is entirely possible that - as happens in societies here on Earth - a dominant repressive set of ideas (any of a number of fundamentalist religions being an obvious example) might quickly stifle any richness and variety cross cultural mingling might bring.

 

[Toby Frost]

I agree: a lot of this depends on the ideology of the colonists.

 

[Swank]

I think we might be over-emphasizing the isolation of a space colony. Communications are easy, as is travel to other colonies or nearby airless worlds. Someone in an O'Neil will be much more cosmopolitan and worldly than a someone from Peru or North Dakota.

There's no obvious reason that an O'Neil would be built far away from other colonies or a terrestrial base. It is not a space ship.

 

[Bramandin]

I think we might be over-emphasizing the isolation of a space colony. Communications are easy, as is travel to other colonies or nearby airless worlds. Someone in an O'Neil will be much more cosmopolitan and worldly than a someone from Peru or North Dakota.

There's no obvious reason that an O'Neil would be built far away from other colonies or a terrestrial base. It is not a space ship.

I can just imagine that the local culture becomes homogenized, but then you get this weirdo who picked up a subculture like furry up from the internet.

 

[Serendipity]

Oh dear - I may be out of step with the rest of the SF community on this one - but history has shown local environments affect cultures. A good example is my grandmother who lived in the heart of Europe well away from the sea mentioned one day that you could see the trees on the distant hilltops clearly and that meant rain was on its way. Huh? Where were the clouds? But she was right. The rain did come by the evening. People learn the quirks of their local area and act accordingly.

If you have people living on asteroids, moons and even planets, they will learn and react to local phenomena. From there on in, Darwinian evolution will produce people who are better adapted to the environment e.g. able to cope with lower gravity more easily. It is but a short step from there to changes in culture.

Quite frankly so many writers severely underestimate the impact of the local environment off Earth. I certainly used to until I decided to write a novel set of Miranda... but that is another story!