Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive
washingtonpost.com
Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive
1–10 of 46 posts
Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive
#2"3 points by wallflower 1 hour ago "
Nothing against the article, but how is this #11 on the frontpage? Did HN make ranking easier recently?
Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive
#3"3 points by wallflower 1 hour ago " Nothing against the article, but how is this #11 on the frontpage? Did HN make ranking easier recently?
Ranking is relative, so on less busy days (such as today's holiday in the US and Canada) stories with fewer points can be ranked higher than usual. You can always email questions like this to hn@ycombinator.com to avoid cluttering the discussion threads.
Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive
#4As if our brains magically emerged from a billion years of evolution with complex mechanisms that did not help us survive... :)
I tried (like a good nerd) to reverse engineer all our emotions in my book "The Psychopath Code." Loneliness fell into my group of "Tribal Emotions" (thus evolved to help us form extended families), and here is how I defined it:
"Loneliness - the emotion of being disconnected. You feel physical pain in your intestines and chest when you see others enjoying themselves. You sleep lightly and wake often. Your immune system starts to slow and you start to get sick. Your metabolism slows down, yet you eat more often than usual. Your circulation slows, and you feel cold."
Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive
#5> the risk of dying over a two-decade period was 50 percent higher for lonely me
Cri de coeur or simple typo? Inquiring minds want to know!
Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive
#6> the risk of dying over a two-decade period was 50 percent higher for lonely me Cri de coeur or simple typo? Inquiring minds want to know!
It's a well known problem with some journalists, they simply can't finish their
Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive
#7Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive
#8As if our brains magically emerged from a billion years of evolution with complex mechanisms that did not help us survive... :) I tried (like a good nerd) to reverse engineer all our emotions in my book "The Psychopath Code." Loneliness fell into my group of "Tribal Emotions" (thus evolved to help us form extended families), and here is how I defined it: " Loneliness - the emotion of being disconnected. You feel phys…
very interesting stuff you have written there, going to start reading it now :)
Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive
#9Evolutionary Psychology is like Leibnitizian Optimisim [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_of_all_possible_worlds] where God is replaced by evolution. It does nothing to aid in our understanding except to reassure us that everything that is is as it should be. It's essentially an ideology of apathy.
Leibnitz's Argument goes like so:
>1. God [Evolution] has the idea of infinitely many universes.
>2. Only one of these universes can actually exist.
>3. God[Evolution]'s choices are subject to the principle of sufficient reason, that is, God[Evolution] has reason to choose one thing or another.
>4. God[Evolution] is good.
>5. Therefore, the universe that God[Evolution] chose to exist is the best of all possible worlds.[1]
FYI, Voltaire made a nice parody of this ideology in his book Candide.
Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive
#10Evolutionary Psychology is like Leibnitizian Optimisim [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_of_all_possible_worlds ] where God is replaced by evolution. It does nothing to aid in our understanding except to reassure us that everything that is is as it should be. It's essentially an ideology of apathy. Leibnitz's Argument goes like so: >1. God [Evolution] has the idea of infinitely many universes. >2. Only one of thes…
There is a profound difference between magical thinking and science. Once you build scientific frameworks (such as EP is part of), you can move much faster in interesting and useful directions that may seem unrelated and yet all connect together.
For example I've used a lot of psychology (based on EP, not Freud) in constructing communities that build open source software.
And we are using this thing called the "Internet" that lets total strangers converse, at no cost. And largely built on free and open source. Amazing, huh?
If you believe that science does "nothing to aid in our understanding," and yet you are quick to profit from the fruits of the rational world that science built, that would make you rather a hypocrite.