Depression as a defense mechanism against slavery
post by snarles · 2012-05-19T11:45:10.617Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 20 commentsContents
20 comments
Individuals who have to conform to an external authority too powerful to resist often get depressed: which among other effects, includes lower productivity and higher risk for suicide. This suggests one way how a tendency for depression, and resulting behaviors of akrasia and suicide, enhances survivability. After all, humans have always had to live with the threat of being conquered and subjugated by other tribes. A conqueror has a choice to kill a prisoner or to use them for labor. A prisoner who becomes depressed and thus poses a lower threat to the conqueror is more likely to be spared. However, survival as a slave is difficult if the master imposes too many hardships on the slave. Therefore, it makes game theoretic sense for a defense mechanism to exist which makes it undesirable for a master to make life too difficult for the slave, in the form of the effects of depression. The lowered productivity resulting from depression means that a master gets diminishing or negative returns from working his slaves harder. At an extreme, the risk of suicide means that a master who pushes his slaves too far risks losing them.
It would seem that such behaviors are less adaptive in civilized countries, where the risk of being enslaved is much lower. However, depression may still be of some benefit due to the fact that the master-slave relationship continues to exist, in diluted form, in hierarchical institutions.
What consequences would this theory of depression have for the goal of controlling akrasia? Firstly, it suggests that the individual experiencing an impaired ability to realize certain goals first ask themselves, "Are these goals really mine, or were they imposed by external authorities?" If so, perhaps being able to convince yourself that your goals are really what *you* want would help motivate you towards achieving them.
20 comments
Comments sorted by top scores.
comment by Emile · 2012-05-19T12:54:29.372Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
What consequences would this theory of depression have for the goal of controlling akrasia?
The first question you ask should be something more like "Is this theory true?" "What do scholars say?" "Does this make any prediction that could be matched to historical (or even modern) accounts of slavery?"
Replies from: Crux↑ comment by Crux · 2012-05-19T15:34:40.384Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Notice the "would". That makes it conditional on whether it's correct. S/he's not jumping to conclusions, at least not in that sentence. It's useful to ask that question (the one you're taking exception to), because it provides something to test. If there's a consequence from this theory of depression for the goal of controlling akrasia (e.g., the one he suggested), then one could test it out and see whether it works.
You could say that it wouldn't matter, and maybe it was just dumb luck that the theory generated a correct hypothesis, and it's still not clear whether the original theory is correct, but then the response is simply that one must run more tests.
comment by MileyCyrus · 2012-05-19T13:32:01.973Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
[citation needed] for just about everything.
Replies from: Luke_A_Somers, Crux↑ comment by Luke_A_Somers · 2012-05-19T16:42:19.566Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I'd rephrase that as, 'Pretty theory. Go establish it firmly before using it as the basis for strategy.' Does that work?
Replies from: Crux↑ comment by Crux · 2012-05-19T19:17:51.762Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
How could one establish it in any other way besides going out and testing its testable predictions?
Of course one should be cautious, and be wary of trying anything that may be dangerous, but in this case his/her testable suggestion seems rather unlikely to do anything much more hazardous than just not working and wasting a few seconds of effort here and there.
Replies from: Luke_A_Somers↑ comment by Luke_A_Somers · 2012-05-20T10:31:39.043Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
How could one establish it in any other way besides going out and testing its testable predictions?
Using a notion as the basis for strategy is a different thing than testing the notion, even if you end up performing the same externally visible actions - in the latter case, you're paying a lot more effort in keeping track of just what you're doing differently and how it's working, and ideally arranging for replication and coordination with other people following the strategy. Moreover, testing can be done in constructed environments with carefully selected cohorts rather than in semi-random environments with self-selected cohorts, which is what you get if people begin applying it as strategy. The latter case is a lot harder to work with, statistically speaking.
↑ comment by Crux · 2012-05-19T15:36:04.618Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Since when did speculating on evpsych start requiring a bunch of citations?
Replies from: RobertLumley↑ comment by RobertLumley · 2012-05-19T15:39:21.135Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Since the speculating was presented as fact and goes wildly against intuition.
Replies from: Crux↑ comment by Crux · 2012-05-19T15:46:48.326Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
the speculating was presented as fact
Was it? I guess I just have a habit of reading anything on evpsych as speculation, no matter how it's worded. I can't really tell whether s/he thought s/he was presenting fact, or just suggesting an interesting line of inquiry.
the speculating [...] goes wildly against intuition
In what way? As far as I can tell, s/he didn't suggest that was the only evolutionary function of depression, but merely that it may be one of them.
Replies from: RobertLumley↑ comment by RobertLumley · 2012-05-19T19:40:18.509Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Was it?
I read it as so, and that's about all I can say.
In what way?
It doesn't make much sense that it would be adaptive to have a condition that commonly leads to suicide.
comment by Eliezer Yudkowsky (Eliezer_Yudkowsky) · 2012-05-19T22:15:04.687Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Sounds like group selection theory to me. If you have a group of slaves and one slave has a gene that makes them unproductive, I doubt they'll have better reproductive fitness than the others - you'd just dispose of the bad slave. It only works for all the slaves, if all the slaves have the same gene - so it only works if group selection works, and group selection doesn't work.
comment by EternalArchon · 2012-05-19T16:04:25.510Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Seems like a lot words to express:
- Akrasia is an adaptive response to conserve energy while in an exploiting hierarchy.
↑ comment by TheOtherDave · 2012-05-19T20:32:12.025Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Lord knows this is usually why I don't get much work done at work.
↑ comment by Jayson_Virissimo · 2012-05-20T05:28:14.054Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Akrasia is an adaptive response to conserve energy while in an exploiting hierarchy.
How long would that summary be after tabooing exploiting hierarchy?
Replies from: TheOtherDave↑ comment by TheOtherDave · 2012-05-20T05:40:06.506Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I suspect that replacing it with "situation where others will likely benefit from my efforts more than I wish them to" would capture the bulk of what's meant here. A somewhat more precise version might be "situation where others will likely benefit from my efforts in such a way that if I (or others implementing the same algorithm I do) were predictably an unreliable source of benefits they (and others implementing the same algorithm they do) would be less likely to place me/us in said situation, and I value that second state more than the first one."
comment by bramflakes · 2012-05-19T12:04:09.925Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
How exactly would becoming suicidal help inclusive genetic fitness?
Replies from: Grognorcomment by Shmi (shminux) · 2012-05-19T18:10:03.711Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
What consequences would this theory of depression have for the goal of controlling akrasia?
Enslaving these akrastic individuals should be easy, they won't fight back.
Make them do something useful, for their own good, "or else". This makes these external goals explicit and harder to ignore.
↑ comment by gwern · 2012-05-19T18:54:18.765Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I think he means for the akratic person. I see plenty of implications, for example that a way to attack the root of depression would be to fake markers of status - have the person join a small club or organization which they can derive status from, for example.