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Comment by yters | Hacker News Reader

Is our fear of rejection part of common sense?

> Use common sense

Read "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin de Becker. Highly recommend it for anyone who wants to know more about how to protect yourself.

tldr: Trust your instincts. They have been honed by many, many iterations.

http://tgace.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/the-gift-of-fear/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_of_Fear

I don't know if you've ever read the Bible, but in Joshua 1:9 God says "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid".

God was telling Joshua and the Israelites the formula for success.

I'd take The Book's word over what your book says any day.

I have a book that tells me I can't own people. It's kind of a short read, but they keep adding amendments...

Bible says fear of God is beginning of wisdom. We are to fear God because He can destroy our soul whereas everyone else can only destroy our body.

Yes, but most of these iterations took place under very different circumstances than what you are likely to face today.

"They have been honed by many, many iterations." For an environment and time that we no longer live in. Evolution honed our instincts for a reason, but this reasoning was good for jungles and savannas, not urban sprawls and concrete jungles.

The danger being discussed above is that from other humans. I don't think people have changed nearly enough to call our instincts about them into question.

So has this been debunked? http://tinyurl.com/2e7c24z

You have now culture, law, education, and much more conditioning than 50000/100000/1000000 years ago. I would argue that much have changed regarding how other humans react to what we do.

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