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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

Makes me think of a question my coworker asked the other day - how is it that with all these stories and reports of people "hearing voices in their head" (of the pushy kind, not usual internal monologue), these voices are always bad ones telling people to do evil things? Why there are no voices bugging you to feel great, focus, get back to work, help grandma through the crossing, etc.?

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There are actually many parts of the world where such voices are routinely positive or neutral[0]. People in more collectivist cultures often have a less-strict division between their minds and their environments and are more apt to believe in spirits and the ‘supernatural’ as an ordinary part of the world, so ‘voices in the head’ aren’t automatically viewed as a nefarious intrusion into the sanctity of one’s mind.

Modern western cultures treat such experiences as pathologies of a sick mind, so it makes sense that the voices present more negatively.

[0]: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250902-the-places-where...

The explanation I heard here is that in most of the world you already grow up with constant personal space boundary violations and voices that don't shut up. (And we like it that way!) So the marginal cost of another one is pretty low.

Curiously the biggest pathology in the west is the inverse: way too much distance.

Just a guess, but maybe it's reporting bias? Negative or evil actions might have more impetus to be understood by others than positive actions. I'd rather try and figure out why my friend suddenly started murdering the neighbours than why he's been getting his work done on time.

Actually, the euphoric mood disorder may make one hear voices telling to feel great, do good, help all grandmas of the world through the crossing, etc.

The "focus" and "get back to work" parts are hard, though.

There's a clear-cut religious answer but I'd get ostracized for mentioning religion anywhere here.

This is indeed the right way to approach this topic. Arguably religion (and more broadly, mysticism and shamanism) is the millenia-old art of cultivating positive voices inside one's head. A proto-science of mind, or the engineering practice of creating "psychotechnologies" that run on your carbon wetware.

Unfortunately, it just needs a rebranding for the 21st century, since the aesthetic of angels and demons is so hopelessly antiquated and doesn't really have the same cachet it used to.

Which ultimately it's what religion has always been: a way to explain the unexplainable and steer people behavior while doing it.

Of course there are! We just take credit for those voices instead of disowning and demonizing them.

They do appear in some cases. The tiny angel on one shoulder to balance the demon on the other. The people who think God is talking to them directly* don't always lead a cult or hunt down heretics. But news stories focus on the darkness.

* I've met exactly one person, C, who admitted to this; C retold to me that other people from C's church give them strange looks when talking about it with them, this did not lead to any apparent introspection on the part of C.

Well, talking to the guy directly defeats the whole point of the institution which is supposed to stand in the way, so actual religious experience is a faux pas.

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