Discussion Maybe depression if a product of natural selection

[DoomValuer]

So, just a day ago, I had a thought, my idea is, what if depression and suicide were just natural byproducts of evolution, in that they destroy all those "too unfit" for actually living well, reproducing and not being a waste of resources for the population. This is similar to sexual reproduction, which restricts itself by the difficulty of finding a partner to reproduce with, but ensures competition and reduces the amount of people that are less likely to thrive.

Some evidence for this may be that in thousands of years of evolution, depression still haunts humanity.

Do you guys agree?

 

[Blurry_Buildings]

There is more evidence that depression is both situational and hereditary (likely there is a genetic predisposition to it that is affected by the person's cirumstances). Not everyone has the genetic predisposition for it, but a sizeable amount of perfectly capable people do, which means that depression likely has little effect on a human's ability to survive. It could have even been beneficial in some areas if it took the form of paranoia.

Most depressed people do not commit suicide or commit suicide well after having children, and suicide in general was probably not as big of an issue before modern societies were formed, but obviously its hard to know.

I don't think it suddenly develops in an unfit person to remove them for being "unfit" though. There are plenty of people today who were born with debilitating conditions who aren't depressed, and plenty of depressed people who live full lives and pass down their genes.

 

[user56765567]

I'm a bit skeptical tbh, I mean there are people who meet the criteria of living well, and reproducing/having many kids in the process, who can still get and have gotten to that point in their lives of feeling depress and suicidal so I think while genetics might play a big part of the equation and the process of evolution still progressing as time goes on might be playing a part in some way in all animals as well, I don't think evolution intentionally did this in some scheme to get rid of unfit candidates who don't fit certain criteria but if it ever came out through research and discovery that it did I would say thats just horrible.

 

[warm dreams]

I've been thinking about this for a long time. I cannot provide any facts or evidence, but this is also my hypothesis. I agree with your opinion. Moreover, if we adhere to this theory, then I can include not only suicide, but also school shootings, terrorist attacks, drug addiction and non-traditional sexual orientation (I am not a homophobe). If we talk about this topic, that evolution is brilliant, then all these examples are clearly aimed at ensuring that there is no overpopulation on our planet and that there is no bad gene pool among the population of the Earth. My subjective opinion.

 

[Abyssal]

I mean, natural selection is the process of removing traits that reduce chance of survival, so I suppose it is. Suicidal people don't exactly do living better than the non suicidal.

That said there's also environmental factors at play, so that does not make all suicide natural selection, though even that could be considered survival of the fittest if you look at it closely enough.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

Depression is a kind of "shutdown" when "stress" becomes too much. Mainly induced by the circumstances of our surroundings and environment. I'm well aware that the whole thing about depression is far more complex but basically that's in my opinion.

We don't live in natural environments anymore and humans did not have time to adapt to their own environment they created. We make ourselves sick with our own evolution.

Depression is a natural security mechanism of our brains that helped us surviving in nature. In today's societies this function is useless bc things for depressed people will most likely become worse.

 

[WeDontKnowTheFuture]

Completely agree to this hypothesis, i think that suicide is a natural process when one being cannot function correctly in a healty way and is not able to find a way out of it. An unbalanced system finally crash ( if it not possible to fix it). Then new systems more efficient and adapted comes. It is like this in mechanic as in biology.

 

[Pallf]

I've definitely had that thought process before. That depression and suicidal tendencies are just the manifestation of "survival of the fittest." I understand now that it doesn't fit the term correctly, but I still wonder why it happens to us.

 

[tinyghost]

i dont know... saying that anyone with a certain disease is meant to die sounds a bit eugenics-y to me. also my depression (and likely other mental illnesses) is caused by my pstd which was caused by abuse from other humans. if that had never happened i might not be depressed at all. its an idea i just dont think i agree.