What less than desirable traits promote survival?

[Anomalocaris]

From an evolutionary standpoint, there can't be any traits which promote survival that can be considered 'less than desirable'. Since the only point of a species is to survive, all traits which work to that end are traits to be desired.

Boru

Say two traits will, as far as we can tell, both help equally to enable their carriers to survive.   But one has the indirect effect of reducing the chances of many others of the specie surviving, the other increases the chances of many others of the species surviving.

One might say the first trait is less than desirable, and its ability to enable its carrier to surivived should be curtailed so its carriers will not pass the trait on and give it many more chances to act out its indirect harmful effect on other members of the specie.

[Angrboda]

From an evolutionary standpoint, there can't be any traits which promote survival that can be considered 'less than desirable'. Since the only point of a species is to survive, all traits which work to that end are traits to be desired.

Boru

That's true from the perspective of our genes' interests, but not necessarily of the interests of the consciousnesses floating on that platform's technology.

[vulcanlogician]

I've read the hypothesis that psychopaths aren't broken, they're predators of our own species. Not all of them have predatory behavior, but they can benefit from their lack of empathy.

I got into a pretty interesting conversation with a psych major concerning psychological "disorders" that potentially benefit those who have the disorder. (It somewhat relates to your OP). Here are two examples:

Narcissistic Personality Disorder: I often doubt myself and thus appear unsure/in doubt of my own abilities. Because of this, I often fail to influence others... in any case, a lack of confidence doesn't help me. Not so with a narcissist! These guys can inspire confidence in large numbers of people (and often do). Also, if they are in a personal relationship with someone without the disorder, they can act like an emotional parasite on the other person, leading the other person to have low self esteem while they enjoy a self esteem boost at the expense of another.

Sociopathy: These guys lack empathy, but they can sometimes fake it so well, it hardly counts as a deficit. Is empathy even innately valuable? Is someone who can fake it not better off than a person who is genuinely empathetic? After all, real empathy often prevents a person from taking advantage of others.

Plenty of figures in history were narcissists and sociopaths. They used others to boost their own self esteem/slaughtered innocents when it suited their needs. Could it not be argued that these "disorders" actually served a net benefit to those who were "afflicted" with them?

[Anomalocaris]

If psychopathy is a unmitigated survival advantage, then the question must be asked why non-psychopathy seem to have had much greater success as in indicated by its much greater prevalence.

There are many ways a gene or trait can affect it’s own chances of survival. Some can be sharp and direct, such as enabling its carrier to be stronger, faster, more devious, but others can interact with other genes or carriers of other genes, be very subtle and diffused, such as the gene that makes some one devious also cause his entire clan to become more distrusted.

Here lies in a divergence between how we tend to deduce the survival value of a trait or gene, and how natural selection does it. We tend to emphasize sharp and direct effects, because these are easy to detect and catalogue and easy to model and quantify. We tend to put little stock in diffuse and indirect effects, because these are difficult and unrealizable to model.

But natural selection doesn’t rely on modeling and doesn’t care whether an effect is easy or difficult to model. It treats feels fully the impact of all effects direct or indirect.

Our best indicator of the overall effect of a trait is therefore not whether it appears to us the gene is beneficial for its own survival, but how widespread is a gene amongst the population and whether genetic evidence suggest the gene or trait has become more widespread or have been reduced in its frequency of occurrence in a population.

When looking at it this way, it becomes clear psychopathy and excessive promiscuity can’t be as beneficial as some might think.

[brewer]

The unrelenting need for women to have sex. Non stop, over and over and over......................

And the chafing is horrible.