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A comment on Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases. Parent comment

Re:Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases by TeMPOraL on Monday March 28, 2016 @07:24PM (#11378291)
It's easy to make evolutionary just-so stories and they're usually worthless anyway, but here's my attempt at one: as an animal, if you reach a certain age and are not already a parent, it means you're deficient. It's better for the gene pool if you die without reproducing. If you're a parent and you did all that was needed for the offspring to survive the early development period, you're no longer needed and probably better off dying instead of consuming resources your children need.
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Re:Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases by haberman on Monday March 28, 2016 @07:35PM (#11378372)
Yes I generally hate evolutionary just-so stories.

> if you reach a certain age and are not already a parent, it means you're deficient. It's better for the gene pool if you die without reproducing.

This explanation makes no sense to me. Evolution doesn't select for the overall gene pool AIUI, it selects for fit individuals. I can't see how, even in theory, this explanation would be plausible.

> If you're a parent and you did all that was needed for the offspring to survive the early development period, you're no longer needed and probably better off dying instead of consuming resources your children need.

This explanation sounds at least mathematically plausible to me.

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Re:Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases by fucking_tragedy on Monday March 28, 2016 @07:58PM (#11378500)
How does this explain the higher rate of suicidal ideation/actions in depressed adolescents who are at their biological prime for reproduction?
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Re:Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases by TeMPOraL on Monday March 28, 2016 @08:02PM (#11378517)
I don't know. Except maybe that biologically they're supposed to have children instead of sitting in school and waiting for marriage, home and a job.
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Re:Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases by yarou on Monday March 28, 2016 @08:40PM (#11378716)
No idea what this means if you're a male. Males are fertile forever basically, so there isn't some "optimal" age to have offspring.

By your logic, males should be continuously fathering offspring throughout their lives, as soon as they reach puberty.

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