Hacker News Reader

Comment by ElFitz | Hacker News Reader

> The entire purpose of emotions is that they are they only place where human motivation comes from. Trying to separate "logic" vs. "emotion" when dealing with humans is a fools' game in my opinion.

Not only that. Another aspect is that emotions and "instinct" are much, much older, from an evolutionary perspective, than our very recent reasoning abilities, and way more widespread amongst the animal kingdom than reason.

So, while far from perfect, they work. Emotions and instinct kept most of our ancestors and most of the currently living animals both alive and thriving. Which means that, despite their limits, they have their place and shouldn't simply be discarded by a wave of the hand.

Took me some time to understand that. And I still have a hard time taking it into account in my everyday life and interactions.

View on HN

> So, while far from perfect, they work. Emotions and instinct kept most of our ancestors and most of the currently living animals both alive and thriving.

This is the point. Instincts developed to keep you alive in a world where the classic laws of the jungle where true. Since the modern world, the definition of what is "strongest" and the threats you find yourselve exposed to differ vastly from that back in the days.

While instincts will generally give you a good direction to start with, problems are too complex today to just rely on instincts. Heck even I had my instincts tell me "this feels wrong" and upon reading and getting smart about that topic i completely changed my mind.

If you have time to prepare for a discussion, try not to rely on instinct but let it push you to gather facts to undermine it or to oppose it.

> Instincts developed to keep you alive in a world where the classic laws of the jungle where true. Since the modern world, the definition of what is "strongest" and the threats you find yourselve exposed to differ vastly from that back in the days.

I think you might be underestimating how much of human instincts have evolved to deal with a complicated network of interpersonal relationships. To ensure fairness, avoid deceit, help our neighbour, and get a good mate. That wiring – which constitutes a large part of our brain – has essentially the same job today as it did back then.

>This is the point. Instincts developed to keep you alive in a world where the classic laws of the jungle where true.

This is so very true. For example, the act of withdrawing from the TTP was an own-goal by the US against China. However this required relatively detailed understanding of the trading relationships and geopolitics of the region. It's much easier to appeal to base emotion - "strong man good for tribe, working with outsiders not good" - to gather support for what is essentially an act that furthers your opponents goals.

> So, while far from perfect, they work. Emotions and instinct kept most of our ancestors and most of the currently living animals both alive and thriving.

It's not just that they work; they matter in and of themselves. For example, it may literally be true that I'm more likely to die from falling furniture than from terrorism, but the fact that I fear terrorism more than falling furniture is relevant on its own terms. The emotions we feel about something like terrorism are real. They have a direct impact on quality of life. And you're not just going to reason people out of them. You can read me the statistics every morning, but my relative fear levels aren't likely to change.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't be educated or that we shouldn't make an effort to control our emotions; it's just to say that the emotions are real and it's ridiculous to dismiss them as irrelevant.

Very true. It's also why an argument, or a policy that fails to take emotions into account, may have even more chances of falling flat on it's face.

Isn't it the whole point of Behavioral Economics?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com