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Anger, Anxiety and Agency

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Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#121

Post by hammock »

tptacek wrote: post #18

The record scratch for me here was the idea that people can choose to be unsure instead of angry. People hate being unsure. Neurochemistry prefers anger to uncertainty. People get angry about being unsure. We feel anger in large part as our brain's natural salve for the discomfort of uncertainty. The suggestion he's making sort of defines away human nature. (There's a lot of practical benefit to be gained from unders…

Selling certainty is one of the oldest and the most consistently profitable industries in the world. We call it insurance

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#122

Post by hammock »

InexSquirrel wrote: post #109
BeetleB wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was taught that anger isn't an emotion. Yes, this is a school of thought I've seen in a few communication circles. It's not entirely accurate, but it's a useful exercise. They teach that anger is really a derived emotion, and is a result of a fundamental emotion, coupled with a narrative in your mind. The fundamental emotion is the real one, and the narrative in your mind maybe inaccurate. As a result, when you'r…

But what's the fundamental emotion then? What is anger derived from?

Typically fear or sadness (not making this up, this is how it’s taught in psychology)

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#123

Post by fn-mote »

hammock wrote: post #121
tptacek wrote: post #18

The record scratch for me here was the idea that people can choose to be unsure instead of angry. People hate being unsure. Neurochemistry prefers anger to uncertainty. People get angry about being unsure. We feel anger in large part as our brain's natural salve for the discomfort of uncertainty. The suggestion he's making sort of defines away human nature. (There's a lot of practical benefit to be gained from unders…

Selling certainty is one of the oldest and the most consistently profitable industries in the world. We call it insurance

> We call it insurance

I really expected this sentence to read “we call it religion”.

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#125

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

mlsu wrote: post #88

This article falls flat for me. Maybe because I'm angry? >Anxiety as an emotion does not require someone to blame. I know this isn't the "hacker mindset" or whatever. But my anger is well placed and justified. It is pointed at a very specific set of people who are actively doing everything in their power to turn the world into a surveillance spam slop hellscape while massively enriching themselves and destroying the…

One could have said listed those sort of things about any stage of the computer industry going all the way back to ENIAC calculating artillery tables, mainframe computerization putting people out of work like (human) calculators, bookkeepers, and file clerks while making fortunes for Silicon Valley's original founders in the process, and, stretching a bit, IBM tabulators' infamous role in WW2 Germany but everyone turned a blind eye to it. Observing the situation with a jaundiced eye, one might wonder why all this concern suddenly emerges now?

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#126

Post by tudorconstantin »

fn-mote wrote: post #123
hammock wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling certainty is one of the oldest and the most consistently profitable industries in the world. We call it insurance

> We call it insurance I really expected this sentence to read “we call it religion ”.

Me too. I wasn’t expecting to find religion and insurance that close conceptually today

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#127

Post by jancsika »

jjulius wrote: post #78
lazyasciiart wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is flat out not a nice feeling to experience uncertainty about things like "can I pay for someone to look after my child so I can go to work?" and "will I have food to eat this weekend?". For some people, "will AI mean my job goes away next year?" leads directly to those concrete uncertainties, and they understand that, and that is why they don't enjoy the uncertainty they are currently feeling. I'm guessing that…

Sure! Uncertainty is a spectrum, and there are certainly moments where it's not a nice feeling. I'm a father, and I'd be lying if I said I haven't had those feelings over the years. My (making it very clear here that one's mileage will obviously vary) approach? I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe I'll need to figure out childcare, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll have food to eat this weekend, maybe I won't. Maybe my…

> I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe I'll need to figure out childcare, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll have food to eat this weekend, maybe I won't. Maybe my job will go away next year, maybe it won't. Today, there's work, and I'll do that work as best I can. Today, there's evidence things are changing, and I can be aware of that. Today, I can do something prudent to make myself more resilient towards whatever may or may not happen. Tomorrow, if something happens, I can react accordingly.

I take it you've never worked on realtime software. :)

For most Americans with kids, if they don't figure out childcare they will miss deadlines. By missing deadlines they risk systemic failures: failure to make enough income to eat, keep their job, pay for healthcare, etc.

It's easy to get Tao-ish about meeting deadlines when your buffer is above 100k.

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#128

Post by BeetleB »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #116
BeetleB wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe anger helps draw attention to you. Maybe it garners some form of sympathy. Maybe people get out of your way when you're angry, giving you a certain kind of power. I know it's much maligned here on HN, but you've articulated one of the key principle of NVC (Nonviolent Communication): Being able to articulate your needs, and map your emotions with your needs. The steps it recommends (not necessarily in this ord…

I was unaware that NVC (North Viet Cong? -Just kidding) was maligned, here. It’s not a structure that I was taught, but that list makes sense, to me.

It used to come up often several years ago. See some examples:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19493179

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19493147

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22759368

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19090712

In my experience, people who are heavily critical of it have not read the book, and are arguing either against articles espousing it, or have encountered what I call "The cult of NVC" at work.

The NVC book is incredibly simple. But there is a sort of cult around it. People greatly expand what's in the book to things the author never claimed. I've even attended an NVC chapter in my city and it was somewhat off putting.

If you're at all interested, read the book and avoid the cult. It's not a perfect book/framework, but I've yet to read a better framework. The downside of the book is it's relatively prescriptive, and doesn't cite research, or do a good job of explaining why the method often works. Other books do that, though. Had I read NVC by itself, I too would be a bit of a skeptic. It's only by reading other books that go deeper did I understand why NVC (usually) works.

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#129

Post by jjulius »

jancsika wrote: post #127
jjulius wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! Uncertainty is a spectrum, and there are certainly moments where it's not a nice feeling. I'm a father, and I'd be lying if I said I haven't had those feelings over the years. My (making it very clear here that one's mileage will obviously vary) approach? I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe I'll need to figure out childcare, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll have food to eat this weekend, maybe I won't. Maybe my…

> I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe I'll need to figure out childcare, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll have food to eat this weekend, maybe I won't. Maybe my job will go away next year, maybe it won't. Today, there's work, and I'll do that work as best I can. Today, there's evidence things are changing, and I can be aware of that. Today, I can do something prudent to make myself more resilient towards whatever may…

My buffer is below that, and I've absolutely dealt with missing deadlines such as those in the past, yet this mindset and approach to the world has managed to keep me sane throughout. :)

That's not to say that things aren't easier or harder at different levels, but you can still approach life from that perspective no matter where you are at. I've always lived a life far from the the income levels that are common around these parts, and this is how I've to sustained myself and remained happy.

Re: Anger, Anxiety and Agency

#130

Post by bitexploder »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #32

I was taught that anger isn't an emotion. It's a reaction -a defensive surge of adrenaline, binary thinking, and motivation to fight. It can feel empowering and energizing. We aren't just sitting here. We're gonna do something . The emotion is fear. Anger is just a reaction to fear. Basically, if we are angry, we are also scared; whether or not we want to admit it. It's a long topic, and one I know well (I agree with…

Fear and anger are generally distinct emotions. You can have one without the other. Many of the same pathways are active with fear that are active with an anger in your mind, mechanically speaking. You can have anger without fear though.

I see a lot of people can conflict the two, but they are distinct as label labels and mechanical processes in the mind. Anger surfaces when there is someone to blame. Or something to blame. Something you can pin the emotional and surge on.

For your hypothesis above to be true, you generally need some sort of risk involved for fear to be the actual emotion. Anger can appear with zero fear and simply something blocking your way.

So I’m just not sure that I really agree on anger needing fear. There are plenty of situations where it doesn’t hold.

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