OK, a bit more serious than my last attempt at a thread.

From the episode Hearth's Warming Eve, we're told that when the ponies didn't get along so well, "windigoes" made their local environment non-viable for raising food. It seems to me that ponies that got along better would attract fewer windigoes and have a better chance at reproductive success.

Do that for enough generations, and you might end up with a population with a really strong tendency toward congeniality.

Except for Diamond Tiara, naturally.

interesting theory. While it is valid, i'm inclined to disagree. If this was an evolutionary trait, it would have evolved long before the time period. A trait like that probably would have evolved alongside sentience instead of way after it. I view the windigoes as more of a social and political catalyst that made them get along.

3968807

This has happened more than once. If Discord's tyranny lasted a long time, then there would have been very strong selection for the ability to form deep bonds of love and friendship, because it would have enabled faster recovery from Discording (especially mild Discording); Ponies without the ability would have found themselves having to face the world alone for long periods after encountering Discord.

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Due to epigenetics (not all genetic effects are purely DNA-coded) and weak Lamarckian processes (an ability chosen for use is easier for biological evolution to act upon), the difference between biological and cultural evolution can be fuzzy. And cultural evolution works much faster than biological evolution, because it is much more strongly Lamarckian.

3968807 1000 years isn't that long for evolution to take place, especially since ponies live a long time. Granny smith is apparently more than 100 years old.

Cool concept, but I still say the windigos were correlation, not causality.

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True, though we don't know how long windigo vs. pony was playing out before the original Hearth's Warming Eve.

3971634 Not for long enough, since ponies couldn't work out their differences in the events that took place a mere millennium ago.