Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ive read some of the book "The Art of Empathy", in which the author describes anger as "the prideful sentry." I like this way of thinking about it. Clearly, any emotion when taken to the extreme is bad, and anger is perhaps the most obvious example -- yet I would hesitate to call its existence useless, even in a modern context. Anger & pride both have functions as "alarm systems" for circumstances which would be detr…
I agree. No emotion or sensation is 'useless', because they all serve to tell us about what's going on inside and around us. I suppose that's the key here. We can listen to anger and fear all day, but we don't have to connect that high-charge wire to whatever machine it's telling us to. It's really important to observe the feelings and not let it get out of control. It's also critical to understand why the feeling ca…
People's sense of control over actions is reduced when angry or afraid: study
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Re: People's sense of control over actions is reduced when angry or afraid: study
#52It's about energy. Anger and fear boost energy temporarily, probably evolved for survival. That's all there is to it, something to do with motivation. For example, when in anger you won't procrastinate which otherwise would be almost impossible to beat.
More than that. Limiting sensory inputs -- eliminating distractions -- can also be useful.
Re: People's sense of control over actions is reduced when angry or afraid: study
#53You never have "real" control over your own actions because free will is an illusion. Thus, my emotional state tends to rarely get angry compared to when I thought free will was a possibility. Since understanding there isn't any control over anything makes me realize what can a person reasonably blame others or themselves if nobody has any choice over how they came to be or act. I don't necessarily gain control but I…
Why even bother trying to explain something to others if free will is an illusion? What are you relying on to persuade them if they don't have a mind capable of understanding you?
I personally believe in free will, but persuasion and learning can still exist even if free will doesn't. It could be argued that people's deterministic reactions led to them reading something someone else posted and that leads to their mind changing. Memes and movements would exist even without free will. It happens in experiments on simple organisms that arguably lack free will (those with very narrow and predictable behaviors).
Re: People's sense of control over actions is reduced when angry or afraid: study
#54I'm a cyclist. This study might explain the sheer number of drivers who tell me that they passed me dangerously because I gave them "no choice". When stopped at stoplights, I've told some of these drivers that they always can choose to wait until a safe time to pass, but many drivers scoff at this as if it's not a realistic option. Perhaps 95% of the time when I'm riding a driver wouldn't have to wait more than 30 se…
If you are from US, I'm guessing the real problem is that most of those drivers never take the bicycle, and so have no clue of what it feels like.
I had the reverse. I drove my bike a lot when I was a teenager. Once I started driving at 18, I realized I did a lot of dangerous things with my bike.
The best thing is such situation is let the other person experience what it's like.
I'm guessing you also drive a car, so you know both situations. But from what I can tell, US drivers have no real experience with riding bicycles in traffic. And the times I was in US, I certainly don't want to ride a bike on most of those roads.
Re: People's sense of control over actions is reduced when angry or afraid: study
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ive read some of the book "The Art of Empathy", in which the author describes anger as "the prideful sentry." I like this way of thinking about it. Clearly, any emotion when taken to the extreme is bad, and anger is perhaps the most obvious example -- yet I would hesitate to call its existence useless, even in a modern context. Anger & pride both have functions as "alarm systems" for circumstances which would be detr…
I agree. No emotion or sensation is 'useless', because they all serve to tell us about what's going on inside and around us. I suppose that's the key here. We can listen to anger and fear all day, but we don't have to connect that high-charge wire to whatever machine it's telling us to. It's really important to observe the feelings and not let it get out of control. It's also critical to understand why the feeling ca…
Hard to teach kids? Can you rule out it being impossible for everyone, except for individual cases like yours where highly motivated circumstance intersect with opportunity to learn them?
In other words, you're talking about exploiting centuries of cross-disciplinary not always intuitive wisdom.
First, would anyone be able to arrive at these conclusions and how to efficiently implement them in time to help themselves?
If not, we require learning reading in school but not learning to read this stuff, so who would think to study it unless there was specific cultural awareness?
Last chance, lucky for you your dad will suggest it. Not so lucky though, almost anyone telling you to change your life in a direction you're not seeking will sound like a dumbass peddling koolaid.
Is the last nail in the coffin it's sometimes counterintuitive? Why should a person not think, sounds nice dumbass (temper trolling, I apologize), but you've got no way to prove it's going to on my non-sheep smart brain.
And you can't prove it really, with any certainty. Despite the irony that the smarter and less sheeplike s/he is the more successful they are likely to be with it (speculation).
Loved the root comment/anecdote though, one cynical point doesn't change that. It's probably a rare beast, a comment that could add value years from now - no shelf life, on a tech site even.
Re: People's sense of control over actions is reduced when angry or afraid: study
#56From the first paragraph: "...they often say that... they didn’t feel responsible for those actions – they “lost control”.... In the UK, under certain circumstances, a person accused of murder can even claim that this “loss of control” led to them killing their victim. If successful, this defence can reduce charges to manslaughter." I am surprised at this line defense (not a lawyer, of course). At the risk of creatin…
> But anger is a choice
Probably most of the time, but not in extreme cases. Maybe the anger that you experienced always fell within these boundaries.
Have you ever had a situation where your whole world fell apart?
In some extreme situations, your brain seems to be unable to process what is going on. Everything feels like a bad dream, not real. In such a situation, you can have a trigger where all of a sudden it feels like your brain is short-circuiting. There is no reasoning at that point, all you can do is try to keep it together as much as possible. I hope you never need to experience this. But anyone who did experience this, understands how tragedies can happen in the worst circumstances.
Re: People's sense of control over actions is reduced when angry or afraid: study
#57Anger is such an interesting experience in that (if this study is correct) we tend to actually lose agency while angry, but internally I think we actually believe we have dramatically increased agency in the moment. That's part of what makes anger so dangerous. We're basically at maximum stupid while angry. Do you ever get angry and suddenly feel a loss for words? Difficulty articulating arguments? Resorting to less…
one of the life lessons that online games taught me was that when angry or otherwise highly emotional, stop playing and walk away until I am level headed again (no matter how much I think action is needed to fix something). Otherwise, I'll make a series of even more bad decisions.
Re: People's sense of control over actions is reduced when angry or afraid: study
#58If you pay attention to how you perform - it's obvious, you don't need the studies, lol. We perform at our best in most pleasant states of your mind.
Re: People's sense of control over actions is reduced when angry or afraid: study
#59Anger is such an interesting experience in that (if this study is correct) we tend to actually lose agency while angry, but internally I think we actually believe we have dramatically increased agency in the moment. That's part of what makes anger so dangerous. We're basically at maximum stupid while angry. Do you ever get angry and suddenly feel a loss for words? Difficulty articulating arguments? Resorting to less…
> " Anger and fear both seem like tools for survival in a world most of us no longer live in." i've come to settle on a mental model of fear being the driver of anger. when someone gets angry, a (perceived) threat typically underlies the anger. and anger is a way of overcoming conventional social norms to unleash energy to counter the threat. sometimes the threat is simply to the ego of the angered person. this helps…
My model is that both fear and anger are forms of anxiety.
The anxiety is often in response to the difference in our expectations vs reality.
Anger seems to exist to attempt to coerce reality towards out expectations.
Fear seems to occur before we accept that our expectations cannot be met and so must be up dated.
Re: People's sense of control over actions is reduced when angry or afraid: study
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my life, I've suffered 3 robbery attempts, and been stabbed twice. Two times before I turned 17, while I was still living in Russia :-\ I was vehemently opposed to my father's attempts to make me carry a weapon since I was 14. I changed my mind after being stabbed for a second time, much more badly (and that happened the same year.) First time, I was attacked by a gang of homeless orphaned children. It was like th…
Wow where in Russia was this?
Blagoveshchensk and Vladivostok