TudorBirlea

The author confuses Anger (emotion) with the behavioural response to anger. And from there everything goes down the hill. Here are some facts to navigate easier this subject:

//> Anger is a primary emotion; its opposite is Fear.

//> Ager is triggered by "an obstacle to the satisfaction of needs" - not feeling Anger when you encounter an obstacle is problematic, your chances of survival decrease.

//> we experience Anger in many forms, depending on intensity - from mild annoyance to red hot rage

//> the behavioural response to Anger can be productive or not for us: if you hit back the table corner you just hit, there is nothing productive in that

//> the big problem with Anger is the type of behavioural response we use: intrinsic/instinctual - that is usually violent - or intentional - such as setting limits, being firm, withdrawing, etc.

The whole point of justice in society stems from this intentional management of Anger at scale.

Anyway, it's disappointing to see a psychology subject tackled by a philosopher where from the first sentences is clear that they are not familiar with the subject. But that doesn't stop them from talking about it. But I guess knowing something and thinking that you know something feels the same.

Behavioural scientist here, maybe this helps:

//> emotions are strongly connected to our physical body - most emotional episodes are initiated by physical stimuli (see danger - fear) and also our internal states influence our emotions (that 'hangry' feeling)

//> most theories on emotions argue around what role the cognition plays; secondary and social emotions require cognitions, but most primary emotions are rather independent

//> there are 2 kinds of neural networks guiding behaviour - approach and avoidance networks - that span wide. The distinction between the 3 brains is not necessarily supported by physical evidence, other than the fact that avoidance nets tend to stay in the lower brain, while approach start there and end up in the upper brain

//> decisions are mostly taken by the subconscious, our conscious mind is mostly a witness with some influence.

//> spot on the counselling - the goal is to move from avoidance schemas to approach schemas.

Happy to provide further info

Or maybe we're just disappointed and with this funeral we've got some kind of closure? After all this was hubris and arrogance all the way down. Founders failed to perform any kind of validation - after all you can't find a problem if you don't look after one, innit? - and the list of "investors" is rather a list of self sufficient rich boys with more money than sense.

PG is dishonest: these guys took no risk; their product did not have a hair of innovation on it; they had a $2Bn safety net.

This summer they had 72k paying users [1]; mix in the $2Bn investment; they could have distributed $27k to each of these paying users and would have still had some money in the bank. But no, they managed to burn their resources and the product with it. No pivot, no sign of adaptability whatsoever.

Let's be honest - it was just an expensive project that failed despite having the best resources at hand.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/8/21318060/quibi-subscriber-...

All models are wrong, but some are useful. There's a favourite professor of mine, teaching evolutionary psychology. He always reminds students that there are many models that can explain something - like why did the chicken crossed the road - from chemistry to motivation theories.

This article seems to argue that because we don't have a good enough model to explain the experience of free will, therefore free will does not exist. Pack it up boys. Also - neurology deals with disorders of the nervous system. And when somebody tries to write a scientific article and relies on arguments such as "makes no sense" - just wow.

Note: I research what is called behavioural causality. And in my subjective experience the concept of free will has less and less relevance. As the ability to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded - just try to have the same conversation with somebody on a full stomach or hungry. We may not realise this, most of the time we are unaware. Our will is influenced by our contexts, internal chemistry, stimuli we were exposed to all our lives.

It is arrogant, if not delusional, to think that in an universe where everything is connected, somehow the human mind found a way to break free and be... something else - influencing the world but without being influenced back. Like that doesn't break the laws of physics!

/rant

Shameless plug: I research exactly this, but from a different perspective - namely the personality traits behind productive/unproductive decisions that ultimately lead to failure or success. If anyone interested: https://www.dropbox.com/s/w31inj3xf4aiu66/Successful%20Start...

I'm a behavioural scientist and I work with startups in their first hires, maybe my experience helps: while it is relatively easy to qualify technical capabilities, most interviews fail to qualify the personality traits of the candidates. This means that only after 6 months or so you realise that you hired a Divider while you wanted a Multiplier. That your new CTO has little patience with the rest of the team, and so on.

We work on fixing that, so we implement a process: founders pick some personality traits they find essential for a great hire, we prepare an interview playbook, and they can be certain that the new guy is actually what they are hoping for.

Interviewing for personality (cultural fit) is hard because we (humans) are hardwired to survive so we give answers that we think are in our favour - and not necessarily truthful. Key to our approach is that we use falsifiable questions, meaning that you can't guess what I believe is a right answer.

If this helps any fellow founders here, am happy to lend a hand.

I've seen this a million times and I have a recipe for it. (note: I'm a behavioural scientist turned growth marketer) So here's the solution - your Early Adopter Profile:

For a single person to adopt any solution, it has to:

//> solve a clear problem - what do you help them to do, in what context and what is the desired outcome

//> the individual has to (1) have the problem badly solved today; (2) actively looking for a solution; and (3) unhappy with existing solutions identified; and (4)interested in alternatives - that's your solution

Where do engineers fail? They imagine that a BETTER solution will attract more users, while the first solution failed to attract any (meaningful numbers). This is understandable, but there is a better way: understand that the reason your Early Adopters adopt you is not because your solution but because they have a frustrating problem that is badly solved. Unless you can convince them that you Empathise with their problem, they will not pay attention to your solution.

This is where you should focus right now. Wanna test my perspective? Imagine I put here an offer for free 1kg diamonds. Valuable? Absolutely! Credible, reasonable, trustable? Naaah. You need to pull your solution's features out of those Early Adopters, by validating what's missing for them in their problem space. Please observe that Adoption has only 20% to do with you and your solution and 80% with how well you understand who is your Early Adopter.

Anyway, drop me a line and I can guide how to start this up.

I used to smoke, too. man it was hard to quit and even harder to replace the fidgeting...

it's only fair

Makes sense if you think about it: no matter how much data I have on you, I don't actually know you. I'm just a creep and the ads I point toward you make you feel creepy.

In my approach, I understand what makes people buy my product so I look for behaviour patterns that are similar but completely isolated from identities. Does this make sense?

My research was around "behavioural causality." The simple way to put it is: any human behaviour can be explained by a core motivation (4 of them) and driving emotion (8 of them). Just as all the music is made with just a handful of notes, the same way no matter how complex a behaviour, it's just a combination of these 2 factors. Of course it's a bit more complicated, but that's the gist of it.

Now, let's say you want to use this for advertising: if you know the equation behind the decision to adopt a product, then you can put in you ad the right copy (i.e. stimuli for the required emotion). People who are ready to switch will feel understood.

Happy to share more if it's relevant to you.

Consider the social impact of the way digital marketing works today: it is completely based on surveillance. This creates mistrust and it is the reason conversion rates are so small. Makes people feel used.

Based on my research while doing my postgrad at Cambridge, I figured out a way to scale empathy: no need for personal data, no need for intrusive technologies, no need for excessive details.

Today we work on this social impact if you will: make people feel understood.

I suggest a different approach: we use Plan Analysis (Caspar/Grawe). This is a neuropsychotherapy instrument that can be used to actually map behavioural causality. These models here assume that you know causes for behaviour, and you only have to map them. BS. The biggest problem with an AI designed as such is that it doesn't have CONTEXT. Behaviour is never 'if A then B'.