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> She describes herself as happy... and yet somehow has been at gunpoint and knifepoint, both of them multiple times. Most people manage to never have either. T

> She describes herself as happy... and yet somehow has been at gunpoint and knifepoint, both of them multiple times. Most people manage to never have either. This suggests such people have extremely high death rates, and she's just lucky enough to still be around to be studied & interviewed. Could you elaborate on what you are getting at here? Who are these other people, who are likewise fearless (like SM), that are not around to be studied & interviewed? I'm asking if there is an evidenced based count, or if you are purely speculating. Say, if there are 19 other people like SM with no fear, and all 19 of them of died due their frisky disregard for some 'risky behaviour' or 'real danger' ... then, I would accept that fear is indeed a gift. > I don't mind feeling fear occasionally if it helps me live out my natural lifespan. It is not just about the initial feeling of fear -- even then I hardly think fear helps a modern human live out his natural lifespan, as intelligence does a much better job of it -- but also the lack of fear-induced complex emotions, such as separation anxiety. Also it helps to remember that stress (much of it based on fear) shorten the said lifespan tremendously. So you may very well be looking at negligible loss vs substantial profit. It seems to me that SM is the first candidate to demonstrate that fear can be disregarded like an appendage in modern times. All that these scientists could come up with over the years to justify their (and the general public's) fear of lack of fear is those four incidents of being held at knifepoint and gunpoint.

gwern 12y ago
> Who are these other people, who are likewise fearless (like SM), that are not around to be studied & interviewed? People who were not survivors of 4 (and counting) violent assaults with deadly weapons, or of other dangerous behavior which might have not have happened if they had functioning fear. > I'm asking if there is an evidenced based count, or if you are purely speculating. I think the burden of proof here should be on anyone who thinks that lacking fear is great. If so, why does the rare disorder not spread? Why is fear an almost universal and evolutionarily-conserved emotion? Why does the only cited example lead an extraordinarily risky life? (How many white female artists ever get held up like that? Or 4 times? Hell of a coincidence...) > All that these scientists could come up with over the years to justify their (and the general public's) fear of lack of fear is those four incidents of being held at knifepoint and gunpoint. 'All'?
- SafariDevelop 12y ago
  SM is indeed that proof -- she is admirably surviving without fear, and being mostly happy at it as well. You tried to counter it first by lumping fear together with pain. Next, you tried to counter it by pointing to some hypothetical group of fearless people that were dead specifically due to lacking fear. I asked if you could point who these people were. I'm genuinely curious to learn and understand how in modern times -- where people with their elaborate plans, not snakes with their instantaneous attacks, are the common threat -- a person of average or above intelligence could end up risking their own lives without having to involve fear. Your argument for evolutionary conservation doesn't hold at all. Intelligence evolved fairly recently (in evolutionary terms) and thus, pending genetic tampering by us, it should take a plenty of time for any such adaptations to be successful. Besides, fear was indeed essential to us prior to intelligence evolving, as the quick and dirty survival mechanism of instincts was all that we had to survive and reproduce successfully. > Why does the only cited example lead an extraordinarily risky life? What I'm asking, specifically, is: are their other (cited or non-cited) examples of a woman or a man with no fear whatsoever leading an ordinary or below-ordinary life? I'm more that happy rescind all that I've written to you here if you could successfully provide them. After all, you have a track record of doing meticulous research. > How many white female artists ever get held up like that? Or 4 times? Hell of a coincidence... Are you suggesting that those 4 gunpoint/knifepoint perpetrators were influenced to do so, in part, due to SM being fearless? It really is hard to say without understanding her life context. Besides, this is going down the speculative path. >> All that these scientists could come up with over the years to justify their (and the general public's) fear of lack of fear is those four incidents of being held at knifepoint and gunpoint. > 'All'? Yes -- and I'm not too sure what you were aiming to point here -- I took the liberty to assume that people like Antonio Damasio wanted to specifically find out/ bring out incidents from her life to buttress their opinion of fear being essential even to modern humans (he did say this in his book 'The Emotional Brain'). Of course, these scientists are also interested in the larger goal of understanding fear itself -- they have published a plenty of useful material -- but it also helps to know they have biases of their own to bring to the table.
  - gwern 12y ago

gwern 12y ago

> Who are these other people, who are likewise fearless (like SM), that are not around to be studied & interviewed? People who were not survivors of 4 (and counting) violent assaults with deadly weapons, or of other dangerous behavior which might have not have happened if they had functioning fear. > I'm asking if there is an evidenced based count, or if you are purely speculating. I think the burden of proof here should be on anyone who thinks that lacking fear is great. If so, why does the rare disorder not spread? Why is fear an almost universal and evolutionarily-conserved emotion? Why does the only cited example lead an extraordinarily risky life? (How many white female artists ever get held up like that? Or 4 times? Hell of a coincidence...) > All that these scientists could come up with over the years to justify their (and the general public's) fear of lack of fear is those four incidents of being held at knifepoint and gunpoint. 'All'?

SafariDevelop 12y ago
SM is indeed that proof -- she is admirably surviving without fear, and being mostly happy at it as well. You tried to counter it first by lumping fear together with pain. Next, you tried to counter it by pointing to some hypothetical group of fearless people that were dead specifically due to lacking fear. I asked if you could point who these people were. I'm genuinely curious to learn and understand how in modern times -- where people with their elaborate plans, not snakes with their instantaneous attacks, are the common threat -- a person of average or above intelligence could end up risking their own lives without having to involve fear. Your argument for evolutionary conservation doesn't hold at all. Intelligence evolved fairly recently (in evolutionary terms) and thus, pending genetic tampering by us, it should take a plenty of time for any such adaptations to be successful. Besides, fear was indeed essential to us prior to intelligence evolving, as the quick and dirty survival mechanism of instincts was all that we had to survive and reproduce successfully. > Why does the only cited example lead an extraordinarily risky life? What I'm asking, specifically, is: are their other (cited or non-cited) examples of a woman or a man with no fear whatsoever leading an ordinary or below-ordinary life? I'm more that happy rescind all that I've written to you here if you could successfully provide them. After all, you have a track record of doing meticulous research. > How many white female artists ever get held up like that? Or 4 times? Hell of a coincidence... Are you suggesting that those 4 gunpoint/knifepoint perpetrators were influenced to do so, in part, due to SM being fearless? It really is hard to say without understanding her life context. Besides, this is going down the speculative path. >> All that these scientists could come up with over the years to justify their (and the general public's) fear of lack of fear is those four incidents of being held at knifepoint and gunpoint. > 'All'? Yes -- and I'm not too sure what you were aiming to point here -- I took the liberty to assume that people like Antonio Damasio wanted to specifically find out/ bring out incidents from her life to buttress their opinion of fear being essential even to modern humans (he did say this in his book 'The Emotional Brain'). Of course, these scientists are also interested in the larger goal of understanding fear itself -- they have published a plenty of useful material -- but it also helps to know they have biases of their own to bring to the table.
- gwern 12y ago