Re: Why are parents OVERprotective?

kratt was speaking in evolutionary terms: anything that prevents offspring is genetic suicide - whether it is because the daughter dies due to underprotection or never has children of her own due to overprotection. In terms of Evolution, they are equivalent.

That said, we should not suppose that Evolution is a perfectly honed instrument that gets everything right in every individual. Far from it, Evolution is an impersonal process by which those that fail die without offspring. We hear about the amazing abilities of birds to migrate thousands of miles back and forth between two places, but we don't hear about the birds that get lost, die, and never pass on their genes. We hear about the cheetah that is the fastest animal on earth, but we seldom hear that they are endangered because their overspecialization and the amount of energy they consume in a chase means that two missed kills is enough to make a cheetah starve.

Likewise, within a species bold, reckless individuals tend to live shorter lives but have more offspring, whereas shy, careful individuals have fewer offspring but they are more likely to live to childbearing age. It tends to balance out at a species level, or at least an ecosystem level, but it doesn't always bode well for an individual.

Of course, this does lead to one other problem with the welfare state: By interfering with this natural process, the modern welfare state protects reckless, thoughtless genes at the expense of careful, thoughtful genes - to the ultimate detriment of society in general and the likelihood of a systemic collapse.