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Comment by erikb | Hacker News Reader

I wanted to complain about the title not really making the right distinction, that fear is not a product but a sales method. However, the author actually understands that distinction and really talks about fear being the product. That also implies that people desire fear and that fear is produced with industrial efficiency.

Interesting thought.

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I don't think people crave fear, they crave stimulation. Joy is much harder to manufacture than dread, and dread makes people act in a predictable, often-profitable manner. In other words, people don't want to be bored more than anything else, and the rest is just about the most stimulating things on offer.

>Joy is much harder to manufacture than dread

Is it though? And is it just harder in our current configuration or absolutely harder no matter how resources are allocated?

I'd argue that Joy is easier/cheaper to produce, we just haven't optimized for it (yet).

Joy is fleeting, fear is forever.

Manufacturing joy is easy, yes. Tie a counter to a semi-random process that's semi-controlled by a human and they experience joy when the counter goes up. The so called slot machine. THis is how HackerNews karma, Facebook notifications, your email inbox, and other addictive activities are designed.

You experience momentary joy.

But fear, fear is forever. How many fears have you been dragging on since childhood that never seem to go away no matter how irrational they are? Could've been from a single event like watching a scary movie about a clown, or a case of near-drowning, or ... well there's a lot of common phobias. The list can go on forever.

You always need to make a new slot machine. You rarely need to make a new fear.

I think that's a fair point, but would argue that it's likely not true for a sizable amount of the population (e.g. my childhood fears have mostly left me). But further, there are lots of services which actually sell getting past your fears, perhaps they are just not selling well enough yet to overcome the amount of fear being produced continuously? Mainly, just questioning how much it is "forever" fear vs. a constant influx of new fear.

Maybe it's not a matter of introducing new fears but of reinforcing old ones and reminding you of them.

Everyone's afraid of random unexpected death that's out of their control right? Well most of us on some level at least.

So media spends a lot of time reminding us that we could die any moment. Terrorists, natural disasters, wars, car crashes, shootings, all these things that have a low chance of happening to you in particular but that nonetheless happen every day and could happen to you.

Or take social exclusion. We all fear being cast out of society. So media keeps reminding us of all these things the cool people are doing that wr arent. Potentially things we can pay to do.

>but would argue that it's likely not true for a sizable amount of the population

I'm afraid you are incorrect. This is neuropsychology.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/your-money/why-people-reme...

That's a pretty weird definition for joy. I can certainly conceive of some fleeting pleasure from a feeling of winning a game or somesuch, but this is no deeper than the pleasure I get from a refreshing drink on a hot day or a fun social interaction. But this doesn't admit of transcendent emotional, spiritual, or aesthetic experiences.

When I was growing up, there was a definite fear of Mutually Assured Destruction, which disappeared with the fall of the Soviet Union.

On a more local scale, in the 80s in Australia there was a huge fear of European Wasps - you could even buy little plastic protectors for your drink cans to prevent them crawling inside.

On a personal scale, when I was young I was scared of being different, now I don't really care whether I'm different or not.

Fear is not forever. We shed fears left, right, and center. Yes, if someone is putting energy into maintaining a fear, it will sustain, but it's just not true that once we fear something, we always will.

I wouldn't even know where to begin, to make you feel joy. Dread though? That would be easy, just sincere threats of violence would make any rational person feel dread. I think for joy I'd have to offer you something significant, or know you very very well. The triggers to make you feel awful are probably much more universal: fear of death, injury, penury, ostracism, failure, catastrophe.

I think that's reductionist.

People also want reasons for things. They don't want complex reasons for high rent, terrorism, racial injustice, mass murder, low employment, stagnant wages, the lack of community support, etc. They want clarity. And "it's complicated" doesn't satisfy emotionally.

So we take a half truth (to be generous) and make it the whole truth. Someone is to blame. Therefore they must be powerful enough to be to blame. Therefore they must be dangerous. And dangerous now, not later. Otherwise we won't do anything about it.

So we can blame boredom or chemical responses for the desire for fear, but there are higher brain functions mixed up in this as well.

Where is the clarity in mass media.

I'm saying there's not always clarity in reality. Someone says, "look at this giant mess!" and people want a simple answer. Sometimes there isn't one. But people demand clarity, so some will emerge, even if it's false and even if it's fear-based.

I'm still wondering where that false clarity is; mostly I see a total lack of clarity being offered, even in the form of pat lies.

What is most interesting to me is that people do not know what they want or what they are really consuming.

Yeah, I also often think about that. We act based of a set of needs. But we don't even need to know what these needs are to continue trying to satisfy them.

Are people looking for fear, or validation for their fears?

Are people capable of distinguishing the difference?

This is what makes horror movies sell, right?

For most of them, yes. But horror is (or at least can be) distinct from fear. "The Silence of The Lambs" is horrifying, but not necessarily considered a horror movie. Likewise "Apocalypse Now", which is mostly about the emotion of horror, but not designed to frighten in any way.

>That also implies that people desire fear and that fear is produced with industrial efficiency.

Or, that what people consume and what they desire aren't always the same things.

At the very least:

* What people buy * What people want * What people say they want * What people would actually enjoy * ...

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