>>13738236Let's think of depression as a reason.
What is the evolutionary purpose of depression? Why can't we be happy? Why do people end up killing themselves because they are depressed?
The theory I am aware of is that happiness makes us less productive. Think of a tribesman who hunts and over his first kill, gets so happy he doesn't need to hunt again to feel happy anymore. While on the other hand, you have a tribesman who gets less happy and even depressed if he does not hunt for the day. Obviously, the second tribesman will get ladies and his tribe's respect.
This is why depression was selected for. Now imagine someone who is too dumb to get anything right, but also gets depressed. Eventually, if he doesn't find a way out, he would probably either cope and NEET, or kill himself.
Obviously, not anything selected for works in all environments, so when you put people in modern higher education, brain required society, it will result in tons of depressed people who can't seem to find a place to work or just find it too hard to learn, so their path of least resistance to survive would be basically depending on gibs.
Either way, I am getting off-topic here. The environment similar to the Richter experiment, where there seems to be no hope, is gonna lead to more depressed brains that would easily give up. Especially for rats where their life doesn't matter much to propagate their genes since they literally birth up to 15 or 16 babies in a single litter.
With humans, they take way more time to off themselves, which is why psychology is a big field even when it has tons of problems.
