2 ms·

> Otherwise, people being horrible really isn't your problem unless you train yourself to be very conscious of their opinions and to care deeply about them. Hu

• otakucode 9y ago
  That is true, and it is a problem that each and every single human being has had to deal with since the beginning of time. It was worse in the past, actually, because the people saying mean things to you were right there and could actually DO things to you in addition to simply espousing ideas or opinions you found offensive! That's why people always taught children to respond with "sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me." That's not an absolution of bullies, and people who interpret it that way are morons. It's a mantra. It is to teach a child that THEY have the control over whether those words hurt them, not the person saying them. By default, yes, we have mirror neurons and we are profoundly social. It evolved to perfectly fit our society of nomads travelling in tribes across a plentiful landscape, where anyone deigning to take control of others would simply be left behind as the tribe walks over the next hill. Wait, we don't LIVE in that type of society any longer. Which makes those evolutionary traits sub-optimal at best and downright dangerous at worst. I'd go with dangerous given the negative impact of cortisol and other stress hormones. Keeping them in check is a burden the modern world puts on us all.