So how did depression survive evolution? It's a fairly negative trait to have, it makes people highly unproductive and prone to suicide, so how did it survive until today and why is it still around?
>>7676430
>makes people highly unproductive
ok, but 'productivity' and 'ability/opportunity to procreate' aren't the same.
>makes people [highly] prone to suicide
no, most 'depressed' people don't kill themselves, only a small fraction do, still stands even if you take out the highly part
How did cancer survive evolution?
The brain is complicated and the emotional building blocks that make up depression all have evolutionary benefits until they go out of control.
Or if you're one of those horrible evolutionary psychology type people that can't stand complexity and so have to invent simplistic narratives for themselves, how about I just say that a biological gambit where 90% of the time you improve your life and 10% you make it much much much much much worse is a net evolutionary benefit.
>>7676430
Assuming depression is indeed inherited, it likely survived the same way many genetic disorders do, it is either carried as a recessive allele (so will only show if two people with this allele mate) or it is carried as a sex linked disorder on the x chromosome. If I were to guess I would say it is the latter as men seem to suffer from depression more than women.
It probably just comes with the complexity and higher reasoning skills our brains provide
Brains are complicated systems man. Probably there's configurations much less prone to depression but the intermediate steps to most of them might be worse in terms of fitness.
>>7676430
how did any of the diseases humans can have survive evolution?
I think humans are just shit at evolution really
its a good thing we're smart enough to make medicine otherwise we'd be fucked
>>7676461
>shit at evolution
Stop it, you're triggering me
Depression probably was far less abundant while natural selection was doing work. I would wager it is the result of our large society.. just like back problems from sitting in computer chairs.
>>7676443
Cancer usually comes after reproductive age. Not much selection pressure against it.
>>7676430
Probably the same way schizophrenia and sickle cell anemia have, by being useful in small doses but crippling in the full expression. Depression is basically like going into shock for a prolonged period, but the response of going into shock in response to trauma can itself be very useful, especially for females, so is selected for.
>>7676512
Fine, then replace it with epilepsy, schizophrenia, congenital heart defects, or any other disorder which is not caused by external forces (such as bacteria or viri), but caused by internal complications. The operative word being complication.
>>7676445
>as men seem to suffer from depression more than women.
Actually women attempt suicide more often than men but men succeed more so in the end more men die of suicide.
Depression is not only a genetic thing and/or may come in pair with a beneficial trait that balances out the negative evolutionary pressure of suicide (increased self awareness for example).
Also suicide may occur more often after reproduction...
>>7676443
>horrible evolutionary psychology type people
Where does this misplaced anger come from?
>>7676515
Those are all a lot less common than depression.
how did male nipples survive evolution?
Depression is caused by inflammation. Inflammation is caused by a shitty diet, being a fatass, and lack of physical activity. Combination of mediterranean diet, weight loss, and regular exercise is more efficacious than any existing med on the market. The leftover subpopulation of people who don't respond to this is so small that it becomes equivalent to any other rare genetic disorder.
>>7676517
>Actually women attempt suicide more often than men but men succeed more so in the end more men die of suicide.
Thats because womens suicide attempts are a cry for help. If a man tried that he would just be called a faggot.
>>7676518
It stems from your mental retardation.
>>7676528
As if we know that. Only some depression is related to elevated inflammation markers, its just the newest fad (same as "lack of serotonine" or neuroplasticity).
>>7676543
>it's new and popular and i don't understand it
>therefore it's wrong
edgy teenager detected
>>7676548
come on. I said we don't know how much inflammation plays a role in depression, which is supported by the notion that only a subgroup of depressed patients even show elevated inflammation markers.
Now saying "Depression is overwhelmingly caused by x, and can be easily treated by y" when there is evidence to support this, that is edgy
>>7676553
>only a subgroup
except that subgroup is quite large in size
and the lifestyle modification/exercise/diet data we have is convincing
>>7676532
Men are more likely to own guns and rope.
>>7676430
>So how did depression survive evolution
We don't know how common depression was pre modern era.
It is entirely possible our biology clashes with our modern society.
>>7676515
>epilepsy, schizophrenia, congenital heart defects
Those are all very rare, the lifetime rate for depression is over 10%.
>>7676584
I have to wonder how many unreported suffocation/hanging suicide attempts there are compared to the reported unsuccessful ones. I mean when it comes to asphyxiation there's not much legroom between being hospitalized for it and dying from it.
>>7676430
>>7676430
I think depression is coming to those who educated well, like in the roman times or greek times, and of course now, because there are lot of people "too" educated, jet not acknowledged. They lack of the trait careerism. And I think this disease is not inherited, maybe if the parents was depressed, the child is more prone too, because the child saw them be depressed, and it is how the child "caugh" this illness, so its not from inside.
We live in an environment which we were not evolved for. Evolution could not possibly think this far ahead and prepare an emotional existence suited for a globalized society. Studies show suicide rates among tribes closer to our historical existence to be extremely low. We're not supposed to be a face in the crowd, we're supposed to be a name in a clan. Mass depression is one of the many signs of friction between man's biological being and their rapidly changing environment.
But it's pretty statistically insignificant. We adapt.
>>7676430
The rapid change from rural to city/industrial life.
Similar thing probably happened when we started farming.
depression is a first/developing world problem. its not seen in people who live wilderness lives. theyre to busy trying to survive and literally dont have time to be depressed.
>>7676430
So how did you survive evolution? You're a fairly negative specimen to have, it makes people highly retarded and prone to suicide, so how did you survive until today and why are you still around?
>>7676430
The rank theory of depression is one of the more interesting hypotheses:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank_theory_of_depression
>>7676689
someone actually contributing to the discussion?
thx anon
>>7676757
People were making fun of you for taking evolutionary psychology shit.
Now you literally thank a retard for giving you a link to evolutionary psychology bullshit.
Good job, your thread is shit.
First off mood disorder (there's no point to delineating bipolar disorder and major depression genetically, the modern DSM dichotomy is more based around convenience for the practitioner than reality) is highly polygenic, meaning there are numerous deleterious loci ( http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.157.10.1552 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673612621291 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632231300098X) that can linked to mood disorder that which all increase one's risk by a certain small amount by themselves.
There are reasons why depression and hypomania can be beneficial to an individual in both ancient and modern society (and to this day the cyclothymic temperament is very rare to encounter in clinical practice as most cyclothymics do not present for treatment willingly unless they progress to a more serious mood disorder). Depression encourages self-reflection and introspection, and it also encourages sociability (though not in modern, Western society) as the state of being depressed is highly identifiable to a typical member of the tribe, who show social support to the depressive.
In addition, mood disorder has a general phenotype that can be assigned to 20% of the general population. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19809321 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032703003252 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032705004192 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016503271300445X http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4072809/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24679394
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3925336/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23759419
These affective temperaments are both ancient (stemming from the four temperaments of Hippocratian humoral theory) and highly researched in modern epidemiology which clear linkages to their disregulated forms (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0165032792900447 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010440X13003635 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032715002967). They are also innate and very difficult to 'treat' in clinical practice.
They also demonstrate how deeply the trait of mood disorder has left its impact upon the human genome. We know mood swinging personalities, we know individuals that are always happy or always irritable or always a little down, but it doesn't cross our mind that these people are related to the severe, suicidal or self-destructive mood states that we see in Major Depression or Bipolar Disorder. Inherently, to us 'members of the tribe', they seem like personality traits. They even seem like people you'd want to befriend, perhaps mate with, depending on who they were. They don't seem like the mentally ill, in essence, even though they are at risk of developing into severe mental illness and bear the genetic load.
>>7676763
This is how I believe mood disorder came to become such a wide ranging and highly prevalent condition in human society, not just in the present, but since the beginning of civilization. As I stated earlier, mood disorder was quite well known to the ancient world, and we have passages from such as Aretaeus of Cappadocia from the 1st century CE who observes:
‘‘ . . . I think that melancholia is the beginning and a part of mania . . . The development of a mania is really a worsening of the disease (melan-cholia) rather than a change into another disease. . . In most of them (melancholics) the sadness became better after various lengths of time and changed into happiness; the patients then developed a mania’’. Aretaeus of Cappadocia (150 AD)
And of course, the conceptualization of both melancholia (µÎλαινα χολή - black bile) and mania (μανία - rage, or madness) both root to Hippocrates himself, though his idea of both is rather different to ours. So I don't think that mood disorder was a symptom of industrialization or modern urbanization. Mood disorders are more prevalent in America than any other country in the first world however, and I do believe there might be a couple of less-than-biological reasons for that (John Gartner would argue that hyperthymia and mild hypomania are such benefits in modern American achievement-driven society that it caused the nation to inadvertently select for mood disorder).
>>7676430
Is this why I can't learn math?
>>7676658
>after learning about the world you suffer such hopelessness that your brain says, "oh, god..."
Truly grim times.
>>7676688
Pretty sure I'm autistic, not retarded, and while death sounds nice, and my brain constantly thinks about suicide, I've got shit to do
>>7676443
>one of those horrible evolutionary psychology type people
What does this mean?
>>7676430
depression is a symptom of society
>>7676584
I'm honestly surprised the firearm fatality rate isn't near 1.
Did those poor fucks aim for the gut or somewhere arbitrarily in the chest?
>>7677122
People are hard to kill
>>7677050
>autistic
>not retarded
Actually autism might not fall under mental retardation I don't really know I'm just shitposting.
>>7676430
because untill now it was not an issue. When you're just thinking about what will you eat tomorrow you don't have enough time to depress.
>>7677122
Probably. Also small caliber bullets can actually bounce of your skull if you screw up the angle or the just dont do enough damage to your brain to kill you. Also people shot themselves in the mouth and literally blow their faces of without hitting anything important. (If seen pics of that, dont google it. Youll lose your sleep).
And also chest shots, gut shots, leg shots, people who seen too many movies and think shooting someone anywhere is just insta.death.
Shotgun to head has like a 99.9% probability of death, as you would expect.
>>7677162
Why shitpost in a thread about an issue that affects at least 90% of the people that use 4chan
>>7676766
>unironically using CE instead of AD
>>7676525
Nipples develop before any sexually dimorphic entities, and they serve no competitive disadvantage to male organisms without nipples, so they were just never selected out.
>>7676761
>there's no point to delineating bipolar disorder and major depression genetically
What makes you think that? The overlap in liability isn't perfect, e.g.
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v45/n9/full/ng.2711.html
>>7676430
Put very very simply, and not describing all cases, stress normally leads to or allows depression to set in. Chronic stress due to environmental factors indicates a shitty environment. Depressed individuals may feel it is advantageous to leave the stressful area and stop moving for a while. Constant hunting or running from predators could lead to a stressed individual seeking refuge as their body tells them to stop. A defense against physical exhaustion and death.
>>7676430
von trier actually had a good take on depression and its "purpose", if you will
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1527186/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
>everything is normal
>severely depressed person stands out as dysfunctional, crippled
>literal armageddon
>so numbed down she's the only one still able to function
==> depression as coping mechanism/adaptation
>>7677387
Or, it can blunt an individual's awareness to a point where they can mindlessly continue through even the worst and most hopeless conditions. That's what lies beyond the upper layers of depression and stress, dull apathy.
>>7677199
>>>/conservapedia/
>>7677199
Considering that the Year Of Our Lord actually started around 7 BC to 4 BC, Christ's birth year having been badly misestimated when the Christian calendar was originally put together, I'd rather not use inaccurate terms like BC and AD.
>>7677387
>>7677393
Historically depression probably wasn't as extreme add it is today. Modern humans deal with greater and more consistent stresses. We aren't dealing with dangerous predators but perceived stress is much stronger. Ancient humans would have had milder stress response and so milder, temporary depression.
>>7676430
Creative people have a much higher rate of mental illness, depression included, so having the creative people survive came at the cost of keeping depression.
Is the kindle fire worth it? I just want to lie cozily on the bench while read my papers
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TSUGXKE/ref=fs_ods_fs_tab_fd
I think I'm going to get the $49.99 one but not sure if it's good.
>>7678215
It's shit, but an HP Stream 7 instead, or one of the other various cheap windows 8 tablets
>>7676430
depression itself isn't a problem. real problem is culture/civilization that creates depression to such a degree.
HERE
http://www.returnofkings.com/36915/what-humans-can-learn-from-the-mice-utopia-experiment
>>7677389
>>everything is normal
>>severely depressed person stands out as dysfunctional, crippled
>>literal armageddon
>>so numbed down she's the only one still able to function
Hmm.. So it's bad in good times but good in bad times?
>>7677441
>Modern humans deal with greater and more consistent stresses.
Like starvation, disease, living under a faggot monarch/lord/tribe leader?
>>7676668
So much this.
guys how did cliffs survived evolution, like you fall off and die
>>7677122
Don't be. A lot of those poor fucks probably didn't know to aim for the brainstem. And even if you do, it's easy to miss as it's not very large.
Merely shooting yourself in the head/brain won't kill you, unless you're lucky or bleed out. But the brain damage you suffer will surely kill your quality of life.
>>7678332
he makes it look like a strategy in which you numb down so much that you can cope with a shitty environment easily (because you don't care about anything anymore).
not exactly popcorn cinema, but if you're interested in the topic it's worth a watch.
>>7676513
>depression is like going into shock for a prolonged period
I didn't realize going into shock lead to no energy, will to live, or appetite.
![10629829_299711206906516_1152552442284399559_n[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/8ZobTEB.jpg "10629829_299711206906516_1152552442284399559_n[1].jpg")
>>7677389
>>7677393
>>7678332
Ya know, nightmare googles.
>>7677198
Because he's one of the 10% that don't.
I think depressed people are productive in different ways. Where as normal people are more productive socially and benefit from social productivity such as having more mates, higher status, etc. depressed people are more productive in things requiring isolation such as gathering resources for themselves and surviving by themselves. Not caring about things has its own benefits
