Comment by dleary
2 months ago
It’s overly simplistic to say that if a person has reproduced, then they have ‘succeeded’ in the natural selection game.
There is a whole (potential) downstream genealogical tree branching off from each individual
Certainly, any person who reproduces has done “better” at the game than someone who has not reproduced at all. But that is still not quite enough.
If a parent reproduces, but none of their children themselves reproduce, then the parent has not actually succeeded in the game.
A gambling addict who can’t hold onto any money absolutely affects their downstream tree.
In theory yes, but given the birth rate demographics I don't think it's actually true. The families giving birth to the most children in the developed world are mostly either hyper-religious or poor, whether that's because it's generational or because they just immigrated from a developing country.
I think the kind of men (probably in their late 20s/early 30s onwards) that can afford to gamble on stock market apps aren't in the running to begin with.
In that case it's just another symptom of the thing that is naturally selecting them
By this logic nobody wins, because humanity will go extinct eventually.
In reality the winners of natural selection are those who were born and are still alive. If life is a game, they are winners in the most literal sense.
We struggle for existence against entropy, not against other humans or animals.