Is self-destructive behaviour a natural response to the need for a cull of humans?

[David Clapson]

When other species overpopulate they are culled by starvation and disease. Humans use technology to defeat this natural mechanism. But when we try to escape a natural law there are always consequences.

Perhaps this is why self-destructive habits are becoming more popular? Overeating and addictions are obvious ways in which we shorten our life expectancy. I suspect that conspiracy theories (including religious belief) are another. If we reject science, medicine and mitigation of climate change we are also choosing a shorter lifespan for ourselves or our descendants. If we reject government and authority, perhaps for laudable reasons, the next step is often rejection of science.

There's a very long list of accepted causes of self-destructive habits, including childhood neglect, isolation and mental disorders. But maybe a principal root cause is that we sense that there are too many of us, that we as individuals are surplus to requirements?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

No.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

No.

 

[IC3D]

Er no. Diseases rip through overcrowded populations in general though.

 

[prunus]

No.

No.

Ah, I’m glad that’s already been covered.

 

[Espresso]

No.
The basic biological imperative of any animal is to survive.

 

[Hearse Pileup]

I'd say it's more a result of messing with large interconnected systems in ways that we don't fully understand and aren't really preparing for the conscequences of.

I wrote a little screed about this during the first lockdown; basically I think it comes down to trying to force monoculture and regulation on a global system that has been designed over the course of millenia to have an intrinsic set of checks and balances.

I don't know if it's particularly well written but if you're interested it's here:

Biodiversity

gaffen.co.uk

 

[chilango]

No.

It's capitalism.

 

[Edie]

No. It’s wealth inequality.

 

[David Clapson]

No.

It's capitalism.

So no self-destructive behaviour under other systems? It's everywhere, even where people are content without huge inequalities. Eg. Norway, Denmark, Finland.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Whut?

 

[Argonia]

Whut?

Que?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

So no self-destructive behaviour under other systems? It's everywhere, even where people are content without huge inequalities. Eg. Norway, Denmark, Finland.

It's lots of things. Life sometimes is just hard, and always has been. There is no idealised simple 'primitive communist' past in which that was not true. Capitalism doesn't help. Alienating people from their work has a serious effect on mental health. Monetising time creates a form of servitude.

Then there is the alienation caused by living together in larger and larger numbers, which ironically can lead to a breakdown in extended social support systems.

Then there are problems associated with affluence. Bodily and mental systems that have evolved for conditions where you can't just eat what you want whenever, for instance. Problems of boredom in the richer parts of the world - freed from a daily struggle to find food and shelter, we can end up becoming depressed, bored, start drinking too much, etc, just as something to do. Fuck, lockdown has shown up that process.

It's all these things and a lot more, interplaying with one another in complicated ways. What it isn't, at all, is anything in your OP. Sorry.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

There's no such thing as a collective unconscious, or race memory, or any of that sort of stuff. Certain behaviours may appear self-destructive, but if they occur on any kind of group level (rather than just individual idiosyncrasies) they probably are the result of environmental pressures which were important once upon a time in our evolution but no longer apply. E.g. over-eating makes sense if you are a hunter gatherer and don't know where your next meal is coming from.

 

[SpookyFrank]

There's a very long list of accepted causes of self-destructive habits, including childhood neglect, isolation and mental disorders. But maybe a principal root cause is that we sense that there are too many of us, that we as individuals are surplus to requirements?

I can recommend the book Good Reasons For Bad Feelings by Randolph Nesse if you're interested in the evolutionary origins of some of these behaviours.

Crucially though, evolutionary psychology ideas only hold water at an individual level. Evolution does not generally encourage self-sacrifice for the greater good of the population, except in special cases like bees where patterns of inheritance are fundamentally different to those in mammals and it can make mathematical sense for a sterile bee to die if it improves the survival chances of its non-sterile clone siblings.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I can recommend the book Good Reasons For Bad Feelings by Randolph Nesse if you're interested in the evolutionary origins of some of these behaviours.

Crucially though, evolutionary psychology ideas only hold water at an individual level. Evolution does not generally encourage self-sacrifice for the greater good of the population, except in special cases like bees where patterns of inheritance are fundamentally different to those in mammals and it can make mathematical sense for a sterile bee to die if it improves the survival chances of its non-sterile clone siblings.

That's not entirely undisputed. We're on to the territory of group selection and if and how it might operate. Being a pedant, naked mole rats are prosocial mammals, btw. They are a bit of an exception, but there are other examples of mammals in which only the 'king and queen' pair are allowed to breed.

 

[8ball]

No.
The basic biological imperative of any animal is to survive.

Not really, but I think especially not really in humans.

 

[yield]

When other species overpopulate they are culled by starvation and disease.

Thomas Malthus maybe who you're thinking of.

Humans use technology to defeat this natural mechanism.

Technology is natural and not limited to humans. Beavers build dams. Crows use sticks as tools etc. It's an extension of mind.

But when we try to escape a natural law there are always consequences.

What natural laws? The fossil fuels we use are the result of previous cataclysms.

Perhaps this is why self-destructive habits are becoming more popular? Overeating and addictions are obvious ways in which we shorten our life expectancy.

Feast or famine. Fattening up at harvest was the usually expectation for sedentary agriculturists. With globalisation there's no longer seasonality to food production.

I suspect that conspiracy theories (including religious belief) are another. If we reject science, medicine and mitigation of climate change we are also choosing a shorter lifespan for ourselves or our descendants.

We're definitely chosing shorter life expectance for our descendants if we don't mitigate the effects of climate change

If we reject government and authority, perhaps for laudable reasons, the next step is often rejection of science.

Not necessarily. Science isn't neutral though. How it's used and interpreted through the academies is intensely ideological.

There's a very long list of accepted causes of self-destructive habits, including childhood neglect, isolation and mental disorders. But maybe a principal root cause is that we sense that there are too many of us, that we as individuals are surplus to requirements?

I disagree

So no self-destructive behaviour under other systems? It's everywhere, even where people are content without huge inequalities. Eg. Norway, Denmark, Finland.

All three countries are capitalist.

 

[SpookyFrank]

That's not entirely undisputed. We're on to the territory of group selection and if and how it might operate. Being a pedant, naked mole rats are prosocial mammals, btw. They are a bit of an exception, but there are other examples of mammals in which only the 'king and queen' pair are allowed to breed.

Whether you think of selection happening at an individual, group, population or species level is kind of a matter of perspective. Obviously selection affects all those levels.

What we could probably agree on is that the timescales involved have not allowed humans to evolve any kind of response to mass civilisation, communcations technology, climate change or anything else that's only really been a factor for a handful of generations.

 

[8ball]

Science isn't neutral though. How it's used and interpreted through the academies is intensely ideological.

Very true, though a lot of things like the Covid 5G nuttery are a direct conflation of kinds of authority. It's not an X leads to Y thing.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It is odd how Malthus's ideas keep on cropping up. I know he inspired Darwin and all that, but his basic warning, made more than 200 years ago when the world population was one eighth what it is now, still hasn't happened. Some century or other, people might start to wonder if perhaps he got it all wrong after all.

 

[8ball]

Whether you think of selection happening at an individual, group, population or species level is kind of a matter of perspective. Obviously selection affects all those levels.

What we could probably agree on is that the timescales involved have not allowed humans to evolve any kind of response to mass civilisation, communcations technology, climate change or anything else that's only really been a factor for a handful of generations.

Agree with the second bit, definitely.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Whether you think of selection happening at an individual, group, population or species level is kind of a matter of perspective. Obviously selection affects all those levels.

What we could probably agree on is that the timescales involved have not allowed humans to evolve any kind of response to mass civilisation, communcations technology, climate change or anything else that's only really been a factor for a handful of generations.

Yes, I do agree with that. Although one of the main reasons for the rise of humans is a remarkable level of plasticity and adaptability wrt behaviour.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Epigenetic effects are another thing entirely of course.

 

[8ball]

Epigenetic effects are another thing entirely of course.

That would be an ecumenical matter.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Yes, I do agree with that. Although one of the main reasons for the rise of humans is a remarkable level of plasticity and adaptability wrt behaviour.

Maybe a bit less plasticity would have kept us from inventing so many things with which to hasten our own doom, but then evolution doesn't plan ahead.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Mark Thomas, the geneticist who first tracked the spread of lactose tolerance in the last 10,000 years, says that it has been the most strongly selected single trait of the agricultural era. Ironic perhaps, given all the changes that have happened, that the most obvious genetic change has been one to allow us to drink milk.

Bit mundane.

 

[8ball]

Mark Thomas, the geneticist who first tracked the spread of lactose tolerance in the last 10,000 years, says that it has been the most strongly selected single trait of the agricultural era. Ironic perhaps, given all the changes that have happened, that the most obvious genetic change has been one to allow us to drink milk.

Bit mundane.

In another 10,000 years the most selected trait will be a resistance to the lure of tiny repeated hits of dopamine, after billions have starved to death in protracted rhetorical combat with others they perceived to be being wrong on the internet.

 

[8ball]

It is odd how Malthus's ideas keep on cropping up.

I don't think it's that odd. Christmas shopping might be a little different this year, but I bet on previous occasions you've commonly thought "I wish all these people would fuck off".

 

[yield]

It is odd how Malthus's ideas keep on cropping up. I know he inspired Darwin and all that, but his basic warning, made more than 200 years ago when the world population was one eighth what it is now, still hasn't happened. Some century or other, people might start to wonder if perhaps he got it all wrong after all.

I so hope you're right, lbj. Then again the transhumanists think we're just the sex organs for the singularity.