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>I think about this almost daily. Sometimes I seriously have trouble falling asleep because I'm afraid that the next wrong door will be mine. >Am I the only on

by Nadya 10y ago

>I think about this almost daily. Sometimes I seriously have trouble falling asleep because I'm afraid that the next wrong door will be mine. >Am I the only one? No, but it isn't a very rational fear. Do you have trouble sleeping because you're scared of driving your car? How about choking on your food when you eat? When was the last time you tested your Carbon Monoxide detector? Ever plug anything into an electric outlet? How long each day are you staying seated? There are a hundred mundane things you likely do daily - each of them coming with a risk of death. Most people don't factor the risks of the more mundane things they do and they actively overestimate the risks of other, less mundane events.

emn13 10y ago
That depends on your definition of rational. Clearly, it's not the greatest risk, not even remotely close to that. But there are a lot of interesting cognitive biases at play here, and some of those exist for a reason. For instance: it doesn't actually matter which risk is greatest; it's rational to fear that which is most avoidable. After all, that's where your attention is best spent. And similarly, we're social creatures and benefit from that hugely: and it's rational to spend attention not just on risks that you personally can avoid, but on those you can avoid with your community. And it's rational to spend extra attention to avoid in particular those risks which are exploitable by competitors: i.e. violence. After all, those risks (unlike "natural" risks) have a tendency to snowball. And then of course you have the fact that this kind of extreme violence poses risks to the community at large by undermining the trust a community needs to exist in the first place. Humanity may well be one of the most peaceful of comparable species (in terms of probability of serious injury by others of the same species), but part of that may plausibly be precisely because we're particularly sensitive to violent abuse. Is that irrational if it grants such huge benefits? If it is, is any empathy rational? In any case; I don't think the analysis can be quite as simple as risks ranked by probability of dying. At minimum, pointing out irrationality doesn't necessarily help much to alleviate the fear.
- Nadya 10y ago
  >At minimum, pointing out irrationality doesn't necessarily help much to alleviate the fear. The only way to get over an emotional fear is to recognize that the emotional fear is at odds with reality. This is ignoring psychological fears of which there may be nothing you can do. For psychological fears I am referring to very specific phobias that may or may not be the result of a traumatic experience. People scared of clowns usually had a bad experience as a child. My uncle swapped my Barney VHS with Stephen King's IT. For a long time I was scared of clowns. But it just isn't rational for me to be scared of clowns and I eventually got over that phobia. Some people are terrified of the color yellow. There's no rhyme or reason - they just are. I'm sure there are various treatments ("exposure" seems to be a common one, similar to PTSD treatments) but some people will just have to live with their phobias playing a large and disruptive part of their lives. Being so terrified of police, terrorists, people throwing pennies off of buildings, etc. are simply things I cannot empathize with. If I was worried about every freak accident in life I'd never leave my house (but what if a meteorite struck my house? [0]) [0] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/02/130220-russia-meteorite-ann-hodges-science-space-hit/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/02/130220-russi...
  - jMyles 10y ago
    Putting police and terrorists in the same category of threat is as irrational as fearing terrorists. There are two million people in prison in the USA. Given the state of our justice system, it's hard to say that those who are selected for this treatment is very much less random than a lottery. It's a very reasonable concern.
  - emn13 10y ago
    You're missing the key point of my message. It's not rational to expect fear to be an unbiased estimator of risk. If you regard fear as a motivation, then it would be irrational to ignore factors other than risk. And that means that merely stating that things are not very risky is not a valid basis for concluding that it is irrational to fear them.
jMyles 10y ago
I think that, in general, I do weigh threats to my life from the state (ie, threats to my liberty) more heavily, and I think that such a grading curve is necessary for freedom to prosper. ...and it's not just accidents. What they did to @aaronsw they can do to any of us. But interestingly, I do actually sometimes have trouble sleeping for the other reasons you mentioned. I live in a school bus, and driving it is, naturally, a source of anxiety. I also carry a multimeter and always check before we plug-in at campgrounds (this after finding some pretty bad wiring). But all in all, your point is super sound.

by Nadya 10y ago

emn13 10y ago

That depends on your definition of rational. Clearly, it's not the greatest risk, not even remotely close to that. But there are a lot of interesting cognitive biases at play here, and some of those exist for a reason. For instance: it doesn't actually matter which risk is greatest; it's rational to fear that which is most avoidable. After all, that's where your attention is best spent. And similarly, we're social creatures and benefit from that hugely: and it's rational to spend attention not just on risks that you personally can avoid, but on those you can avoid with your community. And it's rational to spend extra attention to avoid in particular those risks which are exploitable by competitors: i.e. violence. After all, those risks (unlike "natural" risks) have a tendency to snowball. And then of course you have the fact that this kind of extreme violence poses risks to the community at large by undermining the trust a community needs to exist in the first place. Humanity may well be one of the most peaceful of comparable species (in terms of probability of serious injury by others of the same species), but part of that may plausibly be precisely because we're particularly sensitive to violent abuse. Is that irrational if it grants such huge benefits? If it is, is any empathy rational? In any case; I don't think the analysis can be quite as simple as risks ranked by probability of dying. At minimum, pointing out irrationality doesn't necessarily help much to alleviate the fear.

Nadya 10y ago
>At minimum, pointing out irrationality doesn't necessarily help much to alleviate the fear. The only way to get over an emotional fear is to recognize that the emotional fear is at odds with reality. This is ignoring psychological fears of which there may be nothing you can do. For psychological fears I am referring to very specific phobias that may or may not be the result of a traumatic experience. People scared of clowns usually had a bad experience as a child. My uncle swapped my Barney VHS with Stephen King's IT. For a long time I was scared of clowns. But it just isn't rational for me to be scared of clowns and I eventually got over that phobia. Some people are terrified of the color yellow. There's no rhyme or reason - they just are. I'm sure there are various treatments ("exposure" seems to be a common one, similar to PTSD treatments) but some people will just have to live with their phobias playing a large and disruptive part of their lives. Being so terrified of police, terrorists, people throwing pennies off of buildings, etc. are simply things I cannot empathize with. If I was worried about every freak accident in life I'd never leave my house (but what if a meteorite struck my house? [0]) [0] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/02/130220-russia-meteorite-ann-hodges-science-space-hit/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/02/130220-russi...
- jMyles 10y ago
  Putting police and terrorists in the same category of threat is as irrational as fearing terrorists. There are two million people in prison in the USA. Given the state of our justice system, it's hard to say that those who are selected for this treatment is very much less random than a lottery. It's a very reasonable concern.
- emn13 10y ago
  You're missing the key point of my message. It's not rational to expect fear to be an unbiased estimator of risk. If you regard fear as a motivation, then it would be irrational to ignore factors other than risk. And that means that merely stating that things are not very risky is not a valid basis for concluding that it is irrational to fear them.

jMyles 10y ago

I think that, in general, I do weigh threats to my life from the state (ie, threats to my liberty) more heavily, and I think that such a grading curve is necessary for freedom to prosper. ...and it's not just accidents. What they did to @aaronsw they can do to any of us. But interestingly, I do actually sometimes have trouble sleeping for the other reasons you mentioned. I live in a school bus, and driving it is, naturally, a source of anxiety. I also carry a multimeter and always check before we plug-in at campgrounds (this after finding some pretty bad wiring). But all in all, your point is super sound.