It occurs to me that when I’m reluctant to chat up a stranger, it’s not “actual” external consequences that I fear, so much as my own feelings of embarrassment, shame, etc (note: I’ve no idea if this is true for others). Feeling embarrassed is a (not insignificant) negative in my utility function. And it happens to be a fact about me that if the conversation goes badly, I will feel embarrassed!
Now, this is just a chimp-brain reflex. I’d willingly take a pill that made me less unhappy about failed social interactions, and it’s on my to-hack list. But I wanted to let you know that, in some cases at least, saying “hey, there’s no actual danger here,” doesn’t address the actual issue, because the anxiety isn’t based on that particular concern.
I’d willingly take a pill that made me less unhappy about failed social interactions, and it’s on my to-hack list.
People have long taken it in liquid form, called “beer”. A pill form, MDMA, has also had popularity in some circles. Both of these require thought about how they will interact with most of daily life, however.
Put it this way: find a new one, and you will become rich. Until it’s banned.
Fair point! I’ve certainly used it that way, although not in a very deliberate manner. It would be interesting to pay a bit more attention to that and try and nail how much intoxication, how quickly, etc for optimal social results.
Which is pretty much what lukeprog was talking about in his post anyway. :)
I was being a bit analogical and partially referring to myself, they didn’t tell ME about it in school. I apologize if it seemed like i was being insulting.
It occurs to me that when I’m reluctant to chat up a stranger, it’s not “actual” external consequences that I fear, so much as my own feelings of embarrassment, shame, etc (note: I’ve no idea if this is true for others).
This is true for others as well, and it’s a great example of the way that organisms are adaptation-executors and not fitness-maximizers. Instead of evolving organisms that calculated the actual social costs of rejection and feared rejection to that degree, it was easier to evolve organisms that experienced pain when they were rejected, and then fine-tune the degree of pain to match the average social cost. The downside, of course, is that when the social costs of rejection changed faster than genes can keep up, we found ourselves maladapted.
(This is basically what Luke said, but I thought the expanded version might help.)
Thanks, that was well put (as was the original post). I don’t disagree with any of this, but wanted to point out that the hardwired results of evolution often can’t be counteracted simply by explaining to the meat-brain that they are no longer adaptive.
I think that Luke’s post would have been better served by an example in which the barrier to experimentation was, in fact, an irrational fear of something what won’t really happen, rather than a rational fear of an irrational (but hardwired) negative emotional experience.
but wanted to point out that the hardwired results of evolution often can’t be counteracted simply by explaining to the meat-brain that they are no longer adaptive.
Do you have any evidence of this?
Or, since that is a bit tautological, do you have any evidence that the things we want to change (social interaction fears, for instance) are the unchangable “hardwired results of evolution”, and not the malleable program running on top (for want of a better description)?
I think I may have been using the word “hardwired” a bit flippantly. I didn’t mean something that is literally ROM, but something more like a deeply-worn river bed. I think it is possible to overcome many of our (collective and individual) irrational emotional responses, but it’s not a trivial task. Steven’s comment is right on the mark.
As to evidence, I don’t have any that would distinguish between it being a result of evolution, and, say, something that many of our parents condition into us (which, of course, presumes a pre-existing response to negative parental feedback). I do have evidence that these sorts of things are not entirely—or even mostly—under conscious control.
I think the dichotomy you create of “hardwired” vs. “malleable” is a little bit too simplistic: there is a whole spectrum of brain-habits which run the gamut between them. “The Agile Gene” (popular science...) discusses this issue fairly extensively.
In the spirit of OP, since there’s no guaranteed way to overcome this form of social anxiety and the afflictee will need to try many things to see what works for them, listening to a good evpsych story is as good a thing to try as any.
Let’s not forget the converse: Fear that the other person will be creeped out. No, you’ll never see them again, but you still don’t want to make a random person’s day more creepy.
(This I have recently learned seems to be actually largely unjustified, but it was a big thing stopping me from doing this until then...)
Let’s not forget the converse: Fear that the other person will be creeped out.
I suspect that’s not a true answer. You could hypothetically feel pleased when you creep someone out. That’s a possible state for a human.
So it may not be “them feeling creeped out” that you avoid, but “you having an obligation to feel bad when you creep someone out”, and you avoid that state of feeling bad. Which is slightly different.
In my admittedly limited experience, people who start off relatively normal are unlikely to get to the point where being too mellow would be a problem by way of meditating. Without a concerted effort to make it do so, meditation doesn’t seem inclined to change peoples’ default mental states; most likely you’ll wind up with the meditation-related states as voluntarily-achievable extras, if anything. (Some people don’t even manage that.)
If you do tend to naturally find yourself in the kinds of states that most people try to achieve by meditating, or you tend to have particularly volatile default states, it might be worth worrying about, but in at least the first of those cases you’re probably not going to get too much from meditating in the first place.
I would very much like to read a post on lesswrong about meditation and its benefits to rationality. Since it is used for achieving happiness it might be something for lukeprog.
I agree, and I can’t do it. I’m in the ‘naturally find yourself in the kinds of states that most people try to achieve by meditating’ camp, which makes comparing and contrasting really, really hard.
It occurs to me that when I’m reluctant to chat up a stranger, it’s not “actual” external consequences that I fear, so much as my own feelings of embarrassment, shame, etc (note: I’ve no idea if this is true for others). Feeling embarrassed is a (not insignificant) negative in my utility function. And it happens to be a fact about me that if the conversation goes badly, I will feel embarrassed!
Now, this is just a chimp-brain reflex. I’d willingly take a pill that made me less unhappy about failed social interactions, and it’s on my to-hack list. But I wanted to let you know that, in some cases at least, saying “hey, there’s no actual danger here,” doesn’t address the actual issue, because the anxiety isn’t based on that particular concern.
People have long taken it in liquid form, called “beer”. A pill form, MDMA, has also had popularity in some circles. Both of these require thought about how they will interact with most of daily life, however.
Put it this way: find a new one, and you will become rich. Until it’s banned.
Fair point! I’ve certainly used it that way, although not in a very deliberate manner. It would be interesting to pay a bit more attention to that and try and nail how much intoxication, how quickly, etc for optimal social results.
Which is pretty much what lukeprog was talking about in his post anyway. :)
MDMA works better ^^(and can fetched from the darknet) but alcohol can be useful as well once you find the perfect balance like you said.
I am not familiar with that term as it applies to physical goods...
Feel free to message me about it, but i don’t feel like going into detail on the open web.
Is the darknet part of the internet?
Its that secure part they don’t tell you about in school.
I didn’t go to school, dummy.
I was being a bit analogical and partially referring to myself, they didn’t tell ME about it in school. I apologize if it seemed like i was being insulting.
Yes. I used alcohol to get over my social anxiety years ago. Specifically, E&J brandy.
This is true for others as well, and it’s a great example of the way that organisms are adaptation-executors and not fitness-maximizers. Instead of evolving organisms that calculated the actual social costs of rejection and feared rejection to that degree, it was easier to evolve organisms that experienced pain when they were rejected, and then fine-tune the degree of pain to match the average social cost. The downside, of course, is that when the social costs of rejection changed faster than genes can keep up, we found ourselves maladapted.
(This is basically what Luke said, but I thought the expanded version might help.)
Thanks, that was well put (as was the original post). I don’t disagree with any of this, but wanted to point out that the hardwired results of evolution often can’t be counteracted simply by explaining to the meat-brain that they are no longer adaptive.
I think that Luke’s post would have been better served by an example in which the barrier to experimentation was, in fact, an irrational fear of something what won’t really happen, rather than a rational fear of an irrational (but hardwired) negative emotional experience.
Do you have any evidence of this?
Or, since that is a bit tautological, do you have any evidence that the things we want to change (social interaction fears, for instance) are the unchangable “hardwired results of evolution”, and not the malleable program running on top (for want of a better description)?
I think I may have been using the word “hardwired” a bit flippantly. I didn’t mean something that is literally ROM, but something more like a deeply-worn river bed. I think it is possible to overcome many of our (collective and individual) irrational emotional responses, but it’s not a trivial task. Steven’s comment is right on the mark.
As to evidence, I don’t have any that would distinguish between it being a result of evolution, and, say, something that many of our parents condition into us (which, of course, presumes a pre-existing response to negative parental feedback). I do have evidence that these sorts of things are not entirely—or even mostly—under conscious control.
I think the dichotomy you create of “hardwired” vs. “malleable” is a little bit too simplistic: there is a whole spectrum of brain-habits which run the gamut between them. “The Agile Gene” (popular science...) discusses this issue fairly extensively.
It’s one thing to say they can be changed, and another to say they can be changed just by being informed of the relevant evpsych.
In the spirit of OP, since there’s no guaranteed way to overcome this form of social anxiety and the afflictee will need to try many things to see what works for them, listening to a good evpsych story is as good a thing to try as any.
Let’s not forget the converse: Fear that the other person will be creeped out. No, you’ll never see them again, but you still don’t want to make a random person’s day more creepy.
(This I have recently learned seems to be actually largely unjustified, but it was a big thing stopping me from doing this until then...)
I suspect that’s not a true answer. You could hypothetically feel pleased when you creep someone out. That’s a possible state for a human.
So it may not be “them feeling creeped out” that you avoid, but “you having an obligation to feel bad when you creep someone out”, and you avoid that state of feeling bad. Which is slightly different.
Once, at the Little Gym with my then-2-year-old daughter, I unwittingly creeped out a 2-year-old girl, without interacting with her.
(I heard her mention to her mom “the creepy guy in orange”).
The self-esteem hit was decidedly nontrivial.
.
In my admittedly limited experience, people who start off relatively normal are unlikely to get to the point where being too mellow would be a problem by way of meditating. Without a concerted effort to make it do so, meditation doesn’t seem inclined to change peoples’ default mental states; most likely you’ll wind up with the meditation-related states as voluntarily-achievable extras, if anything. (Some people don’t even manage that.)
If you do tend to naturally find yourself in the kinds of states that most people try to achieve by meditating, or you tend to have particularly volatile default states, it might be worth worrying about, but in at least the first of those cases you’re probably not going to get too much from meditating in the first place.
I would very much like to read a post on lesswrong about meditation and its benefits to rationality. Since it is used for achieving happiness it might be something for lukeprog.
There have been several.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
I agree, and I can’t do it. I’m in the ‘naturally find yourself in the kinds of states that most people try to achieve by meditating’ camp, which makes comparing and contrasting really, really hard.
Cool study about meditation here.
http://www.frontiersin.org/decision_neuroscience/10.3389/fnins.2011.00049/abstract
There’s a wide range of serenity that would merely be considered “laid-back”, which is generally considered a positive characteristic.
nervous-smiling < zombie < confident-smiling (as if you feel you have and can afford to give something they would greatly value)