If everyone was exactly the same - in natural ability, interests, body details, location - it would be more difficult for (simple) societies to achieve wide variation of specialization. Trade depends on different agents producing different goods (division-of-labor) such that all participants in the market can have access to said goods. If everyone produced the same thing, the economy would collapse.
This raises a few questions:
- Do people need to enjoy the thing they uniquely produce? if i notice a lack of quality meat in my village so i start getting really good at hunting - and do very well - but I also strongly dislike hunting, what effect does this have on the society compared to if I chose hunting purely because I enjoy it and the economy improved as a side-effect.
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What about coverage across necessities? If there are a lot of people who gravitate towards farming but fewer towards hunting, you could assume that the low supply and high demand for quality meat would increase the attractiveness of hunting, but the above question comes in again: do you have to enjoy it?
- The abstract, higher-order mind control phenomena (advertising, the-cathedral, religion, ethics, morality, entertainment, vice, etc.) would seem to be the first-movers in determining who is interested in what and in what concentrations. …Is this a version of market manipulation that is very difficult to notice?