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Im scared of spiders. Less so now (simply through will power) but anything beyond a house spider will give me chills (and I cant look at tarantulas on screen).

by ErrantX 17y ago

Im scared of spiders. Less so now (simply through will power) but anything beyond a house spider will give me chills (and I cant look at tarantulas on screen). No other bugs though: which seems illogical to me. I also get that clutching, tight-chested thing when I think about my death (in the old-age future rather than in the now). Conversely when in an immediately dangerous situation (either physically or mentally) I find it exhilarating: the potential of "death" in those situations is exciting. What kind of fear are you interested in though? The most interesting clash of fear/logic for me is travel. People will jump in a car without a seconds thought but conversely are uncomfortable in aeroplanes. Despite the latter being leaps and bounds safer than road travel. Gut overrules the logic in Head and decides being up at 20,000 feet is "NOT SAFE" :)

amohr 17y ago
Well the idea is that fear is often times hyperbole - an unnecessary exaggeration of a natural and healthy response to a legitimate threat. So if you're mountain climbing or skydiving, a fear-adrenaline response mechanism is natural. A fear of death defying stunts isn't really what I'm looking into. What I'm more interested in is if you were unreasonably afraid of spiders, for instance, and you read everything there was to read about spiders, and you saw a spider that you knew for certain posed no threat, but your logical understanding was overpowered by emotional fear. It's the difference between finding a Brown Recluse in your tent versus a St. Andrew's Cross in your shower. And I've thought about the travel fear paradox quite a bit and it actually makes quite a bit of sense. One thing I've noticed is that it's really difficult to affect our fears with social adaptations, but logic is easily overcome by recurring social or cultural situations.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  In terms of the travel paradox and similar fears driven by society I highly recommend a book called "Risk: The Science of Politics and Fear". I reviewed it a few days ago here on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=673955 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=673955 The travel paradox does make sense because our "primal" brain knows whats "less natural": in the face of that the intelligent brains statistics are meaningless. In terms of spiders: I'd say I am unreasonably scared of them. I mean I know fairly large spiders here in the UK are perfectly safer. But I still leave the room till they are gone.

by ErrantX 17y ago

amohr 17y ago

Well the idea is that fear is often times hyperbole - an unnecessary exaggeration of a natural and healthy response to a legitimate threat. So if you're mountain climbing or skydiving, a fear-adrenaline response mechanism is natural. A fear of death defying stunts isn't really what I'm looking into. What I'm more interested in is if you were unreasonably afraid of spiders, for instance, and you read everything there was to read about spiders, and you saw a spider that you knew for certain posed no threat, but your logical understanding was overpowered by emotional fear. It's the difference between finding a Brown Recluse in your tent versus a St. Andrew's Cross in your shower. And I've thought about the travel fear paradox quite a bit and it actually makes quite a bit of sense. One thing I've noticed is that it's really difficult to affect our fears with social adaptations, but logic is easily overcome by recurring social or cultural situations.

ErrantX 17y ago
In terms of the travel paradox and similar fears driven by society I highly recommend a book called "Risk: The Science of Politics and Fear". I reviewed it a few days ago here on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=673955 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=673955 The travel paradox does make sense because our "primal" brain knows whats "less natural": in the face of that the intelligent brains statistics are meaningless. In terms of spiders: I'd say I am unreasonably scared of them. I mean I know fairly large spiders here in the UK are perfectly safer. But I still leave the room till they are gone.