I need to start this thought with the idea that evolution never stops.
Humans are evolving right now, and they're affected by selection pressures right now. In a world where 60% of young men aren't in relationships and the number of women age 40-44 who have no kids has doubled, there's quite a powerful selection pressure towards whatever drives people to have kids. There could be ways where people who don't have kids help survival and replication of their kin and so help their bloodline, but far from seeing that, I'm seeing an increasingly atomized society where individuals are lonely and not involved with family or friends.
We know that humans evolve because we can see many ways human beings are evolved to their environment. Westerners have a high tolerance for lactose and alcohol, Chinese people tend to be lactose intolerant, Native Americans tend to be intolerant of alcohol. Some populations of Africa uniquely hold the sickle cell trait that confers protection against malaria. Even skin color is an adaption based on the environments these people find themselves in over milennia.
The reason for these differences is different selection pressures. Sickle Cell traits are harmful and lethal if you get too much, but confer protections against malaria. Producing lactase is only a good idea if you're regularly drinking milk and otherwise is a waste of effort. Skin color is a balance between letting in enough sun to produce Vitamin D and preventing skin cancer.
The thing is, in the same way that skin color is a balance of different factors in an environment, so is risk tolerance. And risk tolerance can have wide ranging effects. A man who is intensely risk averse might never have sex because they're too afraid to approach a girl. A woman who is intensely risk averse might never have children because they're too afraid to face the risks of childbirth or the risks of raising a child. A man who is too risk tolerant might die in a bar fight and a woman who is too risk tolerant might die snorting fentanyl off her drug dealer's ass.
There are many genes thought to have an effect on risk tolerance. One such gene hit popular media that produces a protien that regulates seratonin and dopamine levels, and between different populations have different expressions of this gene. That's possibly because different environments reward different behaviors. It means there is no single right answer and virtually nowhere is total risk aversion the right answer.
I have a nagging suspicion that stress responses are somewhat affected by genetics too, and so we have certain behaviors such as the increased crime in single parent households that remains in effect even after the parents remarry and thus lose the economic disparity. I imagine a past where less risky behaviors are beneficial in an era of plenty, and more risky behaviors are beneficial in an era of scarcity because when times are hard your biggest risk is not making it and when times are easy your biggest risk is screwing things up. It seems too sophisticated and too consistent to be simply learned behavior.
There's a lot of answers, different people will have different tolerance for risk and not just for genetic reasons, and anyone claiming to have the one single right answer is wrong.
Humans are evolving right now, and they're affected by selection pressures right now. In a world where 60% of young men aren't in relationships and the number of women age 40-44 who have no kids has doubled, there's quite a powerful selection pressure towards whatever drives people to have kids. There could be ways where people who don't have kids help survival and replication of their kin and so help their bloodline, but far from seeing that, I'm seeing an increasingly atomized society where individuals are lonely and not involved with family or friends.
We know that humans evolve because we can see many ways human beings are evolved to their environment. Westerners have a high tolerance for lactose and alcohol, Chinese people tend to be lactose intolerant, Native Americans tend to be intolerant of alcohol. Some populations of Africa uniquely hold the sickle cell trait that confers protection against malaria. Even skin color is an adaption based on the environments these people find themselves in over milennia.
The reason for these differences is different selection pressures. Sickle Cell traits are harmful and lethal if you get too much, but confer protections against malaria. Producing lactase is only a good idea if you're regularly drinking milk and otherwise is a waste of effort. Skin color is a balance between letting in enough sun to produce Vitamin D and preventing skin cancer.
The thing is, in the same way that skin color is a balance of different factors in an environment, so is risk tolerance. And risk tolerance can have wide ranging effects. A man who is intensely risk averse might never have sex because they're too afraid to approach a girl. A woman who is intensely risk averse might never have children because they're too afraid to face the risks of childbirth or the risks of raising a child. A man who is too risk tolerant might die in a bar fight and a woman who is too risk tolerant might die snorting fentanyl off her drug dealer's ass.
There are many genes thought to have an effect on risk tolerance. One such gene hit popular media that produces a protien that regulates seratonin and dopamine levels, and between different populations have different expressions of this gene. That's possibly because different environments reward different behaviors. It means there is no single right answer and virtually nowhere is total risk aversion the right answer.
I have a nagging suspicion that stress responses are somewhat affected by genetics too, and so we have certain behaviors such as the increased crime in single parent households that remains in effect even after the parents remarry and thus lose the economic disparity. I imagine a past where less risky behaviors are beneficial in an era of plenty, and more risky behaviors are beneficial in an era of scarcity because when times are hard your biggest risk is not making it and when times are easy your biggest risk is screwing things up. It seems too sophisticated and too consistent to be simply learned behavior.
There's a lot of answers, different people will have different tolerance for risk and not just for genetic reasons, and anyone claiming to have the one single right answer is wrong.
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