Evolution Will Not Favor Those Who Refuse Vaccination

[MineralMan]

That's how that evolution shit works. If you're stupid enough not to get vaccinated and to keep your children from getting vaccinated, you are a weaker link in human evolution. If you get sick and die, or those to whom you are related get sick and die from your stupidity, you will help those who do take the vaccine in this pandemic to survive and reproduce.

It's a lot like the stupid human a million years ago who confronted a lion alone with nothing but a sharp stick. That human did not survive, due to sheer stupidity. Others in his small tribe, however, cleverly ran away from the lion, which feasted on that stupid human's carcass. In the end, the clever humans reproduced better than the stupid ones.

So, go right ahead! Be stupid. Shrug off the COVID-19 vaccination and tell everyone in your family to do the same. If they are as stupid as you are, you will help improve the human species through the evolutionary process in due time. That surely will own the libs, won't it?

[Miguelito Loveless]

1. Good thing they don't believe in evolution

otherwise they would be screwed.

As you bring up the topic of stupidity, just finished reading this interesting take:

https://psyche.co/ideas/why-some-of-the-smartest-people-can-be-so-very-stupid

[targetpractice]

2. Natural selection, for sure. Evolution? Maybe...

... I get what you are saying... But, that would mean that stupidity or vaccine hesitancy or risk taking are genetic and heritable traits.

Evolution by natural selection works over generations and takes time. Dumb people can still have smart offspring.

But, I agree there is a lot of selective pressures happening right now with COVID... It's driving the evolution of more robust virus as well as favoring humans with a natural resistance. Vaccine modulated resistance is not heritable, though.

[lagomorph777]

6. It's not instantaneous, but over multiple generations, the stupid gradually kill off their lines...

...unless it comes with compensating factors, such as the willingness to directly attack people and take their stuff. That, after all, is how dynasties ( or as we would call them today, "wealthy families" ) develop.

It would seem that the 1918 pandemic wasn't 100% effective in weeding out the lines of idiots. But the coming series of global pandemics will happen at a much faster cadence, boosting the selective effectiveness.

[Probatim]

23. Didn't you watch Idiocracy?

The idiots were having 10-12 of the dumbest kids possible at a time while the smart people waited until "the time was right".

Even with natural selection or evolution, the sheer number of births will cause them to outnumber us.

Add to that the Five Laws of Stupidity and you realize it doesn't take too many more idiots for us to be in serious trouble.

[lagomorph777]

25. Yeah - that's one way to do it - have 10 kids; won't matter if 5 of them die of stupidity.

[Probatim]

27. Those 5 have 10 of their own and so on - it's a winning strategy for global collapse.

[MineralMan]

11. Natural Selection Is the Engine That Drives Evolution.

[targetpractice]

18. Of course.... I wrote that.

But evolution by natural selection only happens with genetically heritable traits.

But things like religions, ideologies, economic doctrines, political affiliations while selected for/against... are not genetically heritable.

Personality traits like stubbornness, narcissism, assholism, risk-taking my not be genetically heritable... Most likely, they are learned. But, some may be genetic.

[lagomorph777]

36. I'm wondering, for a highly social species, can we consider two types of inheritance: DNA, and

"social inheritance" - just as there are bloodlines, there are also "social lines"? The cycle of abuse may be largely caused by generations teaching their offspring to be abusive. Similarly, the cycle of stupidity can propagate (or diminish its propagation) along social lines, not just pure biological inheritance.

[targetpractice]

42. I think most definitely... You are correct.

It was once thought that prior to human beings, the only means of information transfer from one generation to the next was by genetic inheritance. Once humans evolved (and now we know other animals), intra generational information transfer became possible... stories, oral storytelling, teaching, written language, books, broadcast radio/tv, the internet, etc. Prior to that stuff the only information transfer mechanism within a species was genetics.

Richard Dawkins introduced the concept of "memetics" that acted in parallel with genetics". He coined the term "meme" which a human thought, idea, lesson, or concept communicated to others within a generation. Today, "memes" have a new meaning, of course. The "fire is hot" and the "Catholicism" memes are learned, not passed on to offspring by genetic transfer.

Memes come and go quickly compared to genetic evolution. I think certainly your examples of "social inheritance" are true, but only humans can do that. Children learn behaviors and patterns from our parents whether we like it or not. I also think some personality disorders are likely genetic (e.g. propensity for depression, malignant narcissism, etc)... Research now shows that genetic expression of traits can be altered by epigentics... due to environmental factors in utero (humans) or early in life... It's been a while since I cracked a book on the subject... So, I'm not sure if epigenetic traits are passed on through reproduction.

[lagomorph777]

43. I imagine the bigger picture of inheritance includes both factors.

For example, personality disorders would seem a good candidate for a mix of genetic and mimetic inheritance. Trump's father was a pretty fucked up dude, and from what we've heard, he trained his kids to be sociopaths (or die, which eventually was the fate of one of them). The willingness to accept sociopath training might have been the result of genetic differences.

[targetpractice]

45. That's exactly how I think about it...

... Glad it makes sense to you, too.

[njhoneybadger]

3. The Fight-Flight-Freeze response. These fools are froze

The result of Rethug's keeping the flock in a state of Perpetual FEAR.

[malaise]

4. And I should care

because...

[MineralMan]

12. Let me think about that....

No, I've got nothing...

[malaise]

14. Nature won't abhor this vacuum

[OMGWTF]

37. Insert drum sting here

[Initech]

5. I've been referring to this as a "pandumbic".

Because it's really stupid people who are refusing to get vaccinated. At this point if you don't, you might as well start digging...

[Hugin]

8. I think the congressional districts should be redrawn based on...

A combination of the infection and vaccination maps.

It's almost 1 for 1 as it is.

[Probatim]

26. When this started, I asked a colleague how the electoral map would compare to cases per 100k.

I think NPR recently put together a decent map that showed that what I was thinking was pretty much the case - the more a district went for TFG, the more likely the cases per 100k were higher.

How public health became politicized is beyond me.

[lagomorph777]

16. LOL!

[calimary]

28. DAYUM that's good! "Pandumbic"!

Sure sums it up.

My mind keeps wandering over to “the stupid is strong with them, Luke…”

[Initech]

30. I came up with that term after seeing just story after story of stupid people...

Who are dying from COVID after refusing to get the vaccine, then admitting it was wrong and they should have got it shortly before dying. Don't isten to idiots on social media!

[malaise]

39. I'm stealing that

[Hugin]

7. My problem with the whole killing off your constituents..

Political strategy is who are they trying to win over?

Those of us who are vaccinated aren't about to join them and are thankful to the current administration for making it possible.

Where's the upside to them?

If they are hoping for a body count like TFG's that ain't gonna happen. I guess it is the only distraction they have from 1/6; but, we're not listening to that horse crap either.

[NurseJackie]

9. I've stopped caring about them. No more fucks to give. Not one iota of guilt about it.

[MineralMan]

15. The only reason I care has to do with children too young for the vaccination.

People like DeSantis, who would block schools from masking and taking other safety precautions are just plain evil, along with being as stupid as it gets. Ron DeSantis almost certainly has gotten vaccinated. So, he's not an idiot. That just leaves evil intent to explain his decisions.

[NurseJackie]

35. Yes he is.

Scary to think he might be the next GOP nominee to be president of the US.

[H2O Man]

10. It is more about

the extinction of certain DNA sequences.

[MineralMan]

13. Raw intelligence has genetic roots, as well.

[H2O Man]

20. True.

No doubt about it. Yet that is most often the case on the individual level, though raw intelligence of individuals -- or the lack of it -- can influence the outcome for larger groups facing any number of crises. In the current circumstances, there are a significant number of otherwise intelligent people behaving in other-than-intelligent ways. This has to do with the ability to adapt to threats to group survival, or, in this case, the absolute inability to respond to threats in a meaningful way. Thus, in that context, I certainly agree that it does include evolution -- for the evolution of humanity today will not be mechanical, but can only be the evolution of human consciousness -- and the republicans today are living proof that human evolution can not evolve unconsciously.

[multigraincracker]

24. Anthropology 101.

As well as individuals, it applies to religion, government and culture. To survive, they they must adapt to the environment or they will not survive.

[H2O Man]

44. Right.

In terms of religion, it is perhaps best viewed as sedimentary layers forming when human culture goes from hunter-gatherer to agrarian to industrial, with one or more reformation prophets re-connecting it to original values. I'd note that high-tech society has stagnated in that task in virtually every way. Science, of course, offers the solution.

In the context of drastic climate change, urban populations -- usually through no fault of their own -- are the least likely to adopt to those changes.

[Ocelot II]

17. I'm not sure natural selection will weed out this particular brand of idiocy.

I wonder whether the trait of ignoring science for political or ideological or tribal reasons is inheritable. If it is, the trait will persist just because so many of the anti-vaxxers have already reproduced. However, I question whether the type of stupid that causes some people to prefer rumors and conspiracy theories that reinforce their existing suppositions about the socialist government forcing them to do things they don't want to do is genetic. There is research suggesting that conservatives are more fearful than liberals, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201612/fear-and-anxiety-drive-conservatives-political-attitudes - although this theory has been questioned, https://www.livescience.com/conservatives-not-more-fearful-than-liberals.html - because it appears that conservatives aren't necessarily more fearful than liberals, only that they are afraid of different things. And, the author suggests, it might be that people adopt a political identity first and then fear certain specific things as a result.

Fearfulness in general is probably an inheritable trait. But people who won't get vaccinated don't fear covid, or at least not enough, even though they should (like the caveman fighting off a lion with a stick), but they fear the vaccine. Why? It's not because they are fearful in general, but perhaps it's because their political identity has motivated them to fear the vaccine more than the disease. Arguably this is just plain stupid, but is it low-IQ stupid? Probably not. I'd posit that it's a learned stupidity (and here I define "stupid" not as developmentally disabled in some way, but as willfully ignorant) arising from rigid political identity. It's a social disease, not a genetic one.

But even so, if the 'rona kills off enough of these morons to keep the GOP from winning elections I will be satisfied that their karma has run over their dogma.

[calimary]

31. I too will be satisfied that their karma has run over their dogma!

That’s a good one, Ocelot II!

[LetMyPeopleVote]

19. From the Hoarse Whisperer

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[calimary]

34. I am SO with this by now. Sick and tired of these jerks.

Useless to try and keep them propped up.

Fuck it. If they won’t do the right thing when help is widely available and the truth IS out there and easily accessible and vaccinations are free, then fuck ‘em. As the Horse Whisperer puts it: “let them die then.” Sorry to say. But it’s unfortunately true.

Just fuck ‘em. To those wrong-wingers and GOPers who hate government and like to tell people they don’t want to have to share the world with “you’re on your own,” I say “so are YOU, then.”

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

21. As serious as the pandemic is, even with over 600,000 dead so far in this country,

that's no where near enough to influence evolution. Keep in mind, that especially at the beginning, it was mostly older people who died, people who had already reproduced.

The same with thinking that it's mostly Republican voters who are dying.

A far larger problem, one that is almost never acknowledged, is that modern medicine keeps people alive who would have died and never reproduced two or more generations ago. We are setting ourselves up as a species for a huge crash at some point.

[SarcasticSatyr]

22. As pleasant as that sounds ..

evolution isn't about what happens to an individual, it's about what happens to populations over many generations, and most of the anti-vaxers who die will have already reproduced.

But it's still a nice thought ...

[Auggie]

29. Human evolution favors groups working together

Biggest fail? Working as a group to slow climate change. It will hasten our extinction.

[liberal N proud]

32. Darwin always wins this battle

[OMGWTF]

33. People who need to be thinned from the herd.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

38. For this thread

[Progressive Jones]

40. Evolution left them behind long ago. nt