Loners help society survive – evolution selects for avoiding collective behavior

We've raised many litters of puppies; and refer to one in almost every litter as the "designated survivor". The pup that sleeps at the far corner of the pen, that plays with sticks by itself more often than chewing on siblings, etc.

It's pretty consistent; rarely there will be two but they team together, separately. It often drives nervous first time mothers nuts, too.

As someone who is not quite neurotypical (I have adhd) I have to say that being different sucks. I’ve always known I was different from other people from when I was 6 years old. I know it deep down. I zone out and miss things that you say to me about once every 30 seconds. I can’t remember where I’m supposed to be or when. I find it hard to talk to people and I come across as awkward. My social skills over the decades have eventually reached the level of the average 17 year old but they’re never going to get better than that. I stare blankly into space and people have to wave their arms at me to get my attention. My relationships suffer. My career has suffered. I am in constant anxiety over worrying about what I might have forgotten. And adhd is among the milder of the cognitive differences you can have. I’m extremely smart and I learn fast but I’ll still never work at Apple or Facebook. I might as well wish I could fly. I graduated college by the skin of my teeth at the age of 34. Being different sucks. In the popular media people who “think different” are glamorized but how are people who actually think differently treated? I understand that nobody is going out of their way to trick me or treat me unfairly, but the subjective experience from the inside is that it feels like I’m constantly being punished for being me. It’s as if society believes that if they just hit me with a stick hard enough, I’ll learn to be normal. If it doesn’t work their only tactic is to whack me harder the next time. But I can’t just be normal. So I just get used to being whacked all the time. It’s just a fact of life. Some things are easy for me that are hard for most people, but other things are extremely hard for me that are easy for most people, and trust me when I say that those are the things people notice about you and those are the things society cares about.

And people falling all over themselves congratulating themselves for being just so quirky and outside the box just feels like rubbing salt in the wound. You’re not thinking outside the box, you were the class president, you charmed your way into an Ivy League school, you graduated with honors by doing exactly what you were told, and you’re just doing whatever the new trendy thing is.

Actual title: Evolution selects for 'loners' that hang back from collective behavior -- at least in slime molds. The article never directly draws a parallel to human society

March 2020.