I think its a way of addressing black-swans. Hearing about bad things that have happened to others allowed people to make changes to avoid those things when th

I think its a way of addressing black-swans. Hearing about bad things that have happened to others allowed people to make changes to avoid those things when they came for your tribe. Whether it was raiders, pests/famine, disease, drought, etc. These things were good to know and the smart ones definitely made efforts to prepare by stock-piling food, building up arms and armies, avoiding contact with new people when disease was about, etc. I've noticed in myself that my dopamine circuits aren't activated much by working for rewards. But they fire up a lot to get me to do a tremendous amount of work to avoid potential negative consequences. It's not in an anxious way per se... it's just that's what seems to fire up my reward circuits with respect to long-term planning/thinking. There's an interesting and somewhat related saying I learned from one of the Indian tribes near me: "If you don't believe the rumors, you'll surely perish... but if you believe ALL the rumors, you'll perish even faster."