> I think the studies are looking at this backwards. Physical activity should probably be looked at as the natural state of humans and ask why lack of physical activity affects the brain.
I wonder if there's a selfless gene in humans that reduces the reproductive fitness/longevity of humans that aren't pulling their weight for the group. I could imagine that a gene that shortens the life of a member in a group could increase the survivability of the gene in the same way that we've documented selfless genes that spur primates to alert predators to save close relations at their own personal expense.
Lack of activity might just be telling the body that we're useless and we need to exit in order to help others. It's a silly idea, but just a shower thought I've been mulling over.
>It's a silly idea, but just a shower thought I've been mulling over.
I can't answer your questions, but I can add some more food for thought to think about...consider the impact of ones microbiome in turning genes like this on/off. So you may have the "selfless gene" as you call it, but by default it is turned off, so you don't warn your own of the predator, now same exact hypthetical, but it just so happens you ate something that introduced new viruses/bacteria into your microbiome, which happened to change your gene expression and turn on the selfless gene causing "you" to warn your kind of the threat. Did you really warn them, or since the gene was only turned on by your particular microbiome at the time, are you just a host being controlled by trillions of bacteria and viruses?
Not silly at all. You could even relate the suicide of lower status males to this kind of mechanic. Or the grandmother hypothesis about why women have a menopause.
But both genders are prone to suicide, male especially, but that's more societal than genetic. If there is a comparison between equal situations between male and female, you got a point though. But most of the time, I'd say the median male suicide victim is in worse off situation than the median female victim, hollistically
Those seem to contradict. Lower status males would be striving for a chance reproduce, or having reproduced would need to work to elevate their offspring's status.
The idea is if you've lost the race, let your genes that are carried by the winners take your share of resources. That way your genes win anyway. The individual organism is a lottery ticket.
Somewhat related: "How Immune Systems Can Influence Social Behavior" [1]
So yeah, maybe there's actually some subsystem that controls social behavior, to get rid of someone from the group, or out them to the group by having them unintentionally sabotage themselves, etc.
Maybe people who can't self-terminate are turned into some threat to society that would get them targeted, but their minds present it as some kind of game.
>> I wonder if there's a selfless gene in humans that reduces the reproductive fitness/longevity of humans that aren't pulling their weight for the group.
I think that’s where sexual selection kicks in: slackers are not liked and have less sexual partners than those who have something to show off. Reducing longevity is not necessary since people loose fertility long before death
Geriatrics compete with their offspring for resources. This is why most species don't have geriatrics. Humans have some special social structures that make geriatrics useful to breeding offspring.
I wonder if there's a selfless gene in humans that reduces the reproductive fitness/longevity of humans that aren't pulling their weight for the group. I could imagine that a gene that shortens the life of a member in a group could increase the survivability of the gene in the same way that we've documented selfless genes that spur primates to alert predators to save close relations at their own personal expense.
Lack of activity might just be telling the body that we're useless and we need to exit in order to help others. It's a silly idea, but just a shower thought I've been mulling over.