Hacker News Reader

Comment by nobody9999 | Hacker News Reader

Because unless you agree with me, you're a bad, evil person who deserves a punch in the face!

More seriously, I suspect that it's related, at least in part, to (as are many stress/anger-inducing things) insecurity and/or frustration.

If you "know" something and another person disagrees, that's sometimes considered an insult or affront to that person's value as a human. If one is insecure about themselves, it feels like an attack.

Even if you're interacting with, say, a flat-earther and they categorically deny that we live on an oblate spheroid, and no amount of evidence or explanation will convince them, that can be frustrating.

I wonder if such reactions are related to (poor) impulse control?

View on HN

> Even if you're interacting with, say, a flat-earther and they categorically deny that we live on an oblate spheroid, and no amount of evidence or explanation will convince them, that can be frustrating.

This is a useful observation, because I was thinking about these kind of cases especially. Other cases are easier to explain away, but I think we're missing something that this kind of case captures: Why would someone be mad when a definitely wrong person disagrees with them? How is that their problem? I don't think ego or insecurity or any of these typical lay theories explain that at all. Is it just a matter of not getting what one wants, i.e. for there to be less wrong people in the world or something?

Why does the person have an impulse to control in the first place?

It drives me insane for a couple of reasons:

1. I, as a human, like to inform people. I trained to be a librarian and quite enjoy teaching/educating roles. It's never fun to be reminded that some people just...don't like learning. I find it kind of appalling.

2. I have to live in a society with these people. These people are why we have all the stupid rules ("Who would be THAT stupid?"), and there are just so. many. little. annoyances. about daily life that would go away if we increased everybody's IQ by 10. Also that person has a vote equal to mine, it's entirely likely that they're more successful than I am in life, etc. They're symbolic of all the absurdities we have to put up with because some other hairless ape won't think for five seconds.

I recognize that it's not productive anger, and I don't hang onto it any more, but it's still there.

Okay, this all makes sense... but why anger specifically then and not disgust, despair, depression, sadness, annoyance or something else?

Because I am an irrational little ape whose fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response is all fight, all the time.

I'm just a very angry person.

It's not a good thing, but that's why.

The anger itself generally revolves around how these people get other people to do more work in order to coddle their obliviousness. Think people in supermarkets who are so oblivious they make everybody else walk around them/go around the aisle, etc. It's the assumption that everybody else has to adapt to them, and that drives me bonkers because it's an implicit assumption of superiority. ("My needs are the only ones that matter.") I'm VERY sensitive to people thinking they're better than me. (Or myself thinking they do).

Not the best part of myself, but one that's worth being aware of so I can do things like curb any authoritarian tendencies that try to use my anger to worm their way into my brain.

Thanks for sharing.

I suspect it may be biological. As social-creatures, I don't think we are wired (by default) to ignore people who disagree with us. From my non-expert perspective, not being oblivious to people who disagreed with us on certain things may have served well from an evolutionary perspective.

An ad absurdum case: would you find it easy to ignore people who thought drought management laws were a joke and should be ignored? Maybe it depends on where you live.

What about people who disagreed that rape was a bad thing and should be punished?

I know these are extremes, but I think it's reasonable to say that there is a spectrum of disagreements we are willing to tolerate. Not to mention that our recent history is filled with some rather deadly disagreements...

Historically, I image those who ignored their brand of Brutus may have received the Darwinian knife to the back.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com