maybe we evolved to kill ourselves more when we’re unhappy with life.
I’ve noticed that psychological descriptions of suicidal depression involve not just crushing unhappiness in general, but also isolation. Is it possible that suicide evolved as a society-level equivalent to the cellular mechanism of apoptosis? A tribe whose least productive, least connected members voluntarily wander away to self-terminate might have a significant competitive advantage in terms of food production per member, without the runaway perverse-incentive stuff Enron got caught in.
This isn’t just a group-selection thing, either. Given that you’re going to be providing preferential treatment to your close relatives anyway, having a genetic predisposition for suicide means that such intrafamilial charity is less likely to be wasted on hopeless causes, since the hopeless ones don’t stick around.
Assuming that this sort of study is accurate, it backs the idea that people get emotionally entangled with each other. A General Theory of Love builds on the observation that human babies can die of loneliness to observe that many animal species and humans in particular need social contact for metabolic regulation. (Is this a Far line of thought, or what?)
In other words, even a not-very-promising member of a tribe may still be supplying non-obvious metabolic regulation services.
I’m guessing that people who live in tribes just don’t get nearly as isolated as can happen in civilization. Anyone have actual knowledge about this? Stats on suicide among hunter-gatherers?
I’m guessing that people who live in tribes just don’t get nearly as isolated as can happen in civilization. Anyone have actual knowledge about this? Stats on suicide among hunter-gatherers?
I don’t know anything about hunter-gatherers, but suicide rates among industrialized nations correlate very highly with rates of single-person households. There aren’t many social indicators on which Sweden does worse than Italy, but suicide is one of them.
I’ve noticed that psychological descriptions of suicidal depression involve not just crushing unhappiness in general, but also isolation. Is it possible that suicide evolved as a society-level equivalent to the cellular mechanism of apoptosis? A tribe whose least productive, least connected members voluntarily wander away to self-terminate might have a significant competitive advantage in terms of food production per member, without the runaway perverse-incentive stuff Enron got caught in.
This isn’t just a group-selection thing, either. Given that you’re going to be providing preferential treatment to your close relatives anyway, having a genetic predisposition for suicide means that such intrafamilial charity is less likely to be wasted on hopeless causes, since the hopeless ones don’t stick around.
Having a family member who commits suicide increases the risk of suicide.
Assuming that this sort of study is accurate, it backs the idea that people get emotionally entangled with each other. A General Theory of Love builds on the observation that human babies can die of loneliness to observe that many animal species and humans in particular need social contact for metabolic regulation. (Is this a Far line of thought, or what?)
In other words, even a not-very-promising member of a tribe may still be supplying non-obvious metabolic regulation services.
I’m guessing that people who live in tribes just don’t get nearly as isolated as can happen in civilization. Anyone have actual knowledge about this? Stats on suicide among hunter-gatherers?
I don’t know anything about hunter-gatherers, but suicide rates among industrialized nations correlate very highly with rates of single-person households. There aren’t many social indicators on which Sweden does worse than Italy, but suicide is one of them.