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[Rose]

Anyone familiar with SMBC has probably read this comic before, and it got me thinking, why DO people so badly fear extremely unlikely accidents? Well, I thought about it, and I'm thinking it's the same reason that people gamble: A deep-seated need that the 'world' (or higher power, fate, luck, whatever) has deemed them special, and are thus confirming the value of their existence.

With being fearful of unlikely things, it's the same principle, but in the opposite direction: The deep-seated fear that the 'world' will instead confirm how horribly unlucky they are, and that all doubts of their self-worth will be rendered true. If something unfortunate only has a 1 in 10 chance of happening, and another unfortunate thing has a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of happening, then the far more improbable one is feared more because while it's far less likely to happen, it's many times more damaging to your self-worth.

Please don't ask why I'm posting this into the sad thread.

Why are you posting this in the sad thread?

[Cptn Kaladin Anrizlokum]

Sometimes I'll just not eat for a day or two because why bother?

[Orange Wizard]

With being fearful of unlikely things, it's the same principle, but in the opposite direction: The deep-seated fear that the 'world' will instead confirm how horribly unlucky they are, and that all doubts of their self-worth will be rendered true. If something unfortunate only has a 1 in 10 chance of happening, and another unfortunate thing has a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of happening, then the far more improbable one is feared more because while it's far less likely to happen, it's many times more damaging to your self-worth.

I'd say it's more a fear of the unknown. Influenza, for example, can be quite lethal, but because people get it every year, and because it's reasonably unlikely for someone you know to die from it, the 'flu isn't feared because it isn't notable.
A more regional example would be earthquakes. If the ground starts shaking in Wellington, people flip their shit. If it happens in Christchurch, no-one really cares because they've been a standard occurrence over the past few years, even though loads of people died.
People die in car crashes all the time, to the point where it becomes a common thing and no longer notable, so people don't pay it much thought. Shark attacks are very rare and thus very notable, so people are very afraid of the possibility.
Nuclear meltdowns are incredibly rare, and people are terrified of the possibility (at least around here, the anti-nuclear folks never shut up, and the pro-nuclear group doesn't really exist).

...

Sometimes I'll just not eat for a day or two because why bother?

Because hunger is painful? Also, it's really bad for your body. Also, food is enjoyable. Especially when you put some effort into making something nice.

[Arx]

The thing with shark attacks is that there's no way to prevent them other than avoiding places with a history of shark attacks. The same isn't true of car accidents; most people consider themselves good drivers, and I imagine most think accidents only happen to bad drivers. So it's actually more reasonable than it sounds, or at least more intuitive, to fear shark attacks more than car crashes - in the intuitive mental model, the set of people at risk of shark attacks includes you, butthe set of people at risk of dying from car accidents only includes bad drivers, i.e. not you.

Also familiarity does breed contempt, yes.

[TempAcc]

Bluh, ended up forgetting about a certain obligation, which thankfuly resolved itself despite my forgetfulness. Still, I hate when this happens.

EDIT SO I DONT HAVE TO MAKE ANOTHER POST:
Anyway, serious sads with a question included: Am I the only person that thinks the world is currently going through massive ethical and moral decay? Now, don't mind me, but I've browsed the shadier places of the internet for more then a decade now, and never before have I thought that such things were happening. Today, it seems, people are more than willing to use their connections, influence and economical power to distort the truth and get away with pretty much anything, and it doesn't even seem to take that much effort to silence the truth. Internet echo chambers seem to be more numerous than ever, where people only believe in whats repeated and mutually agreed upon by its members, even if its completely ridiculous stuff.

I mean, there are internet echo chambers dedicated to defending a confessed pedophile, SJW types getting rid of anyone who don't agree with them, governments being involved in absurdly huge corruption schemes, people riding on social issues to create distress and profit from it in a way or another. So many people being willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of others for material gain.

Of course, it may just be the case that these things have always existed, and are now becoming more and more exposed because communication and freedom of speech (and efforts against it) have greatly expanded with the advent of the internet.
This is prob the only real sads I have posted in quite a while, but goddamn, looking back at how many ridiculously terrible things are happening right now and how many people are willing to profit from it/pretend it does not exist just kind of made me really sad for a moment.

[Mephisto]

I watched quill18 play The Beginner's Guide on YouTube a few days ago. I've been in a minor funk since then.

There's around eight years between us. We are/were in the same professional field. We only live 500 miles from each other. When he was a bit younger than I am now, he created a site so much better than anything I've done to date. And then he talked about the feeling of never being able to make anything that great again.

I guess that just hit kind of close to home. I've done some stuff I'm proud of but no one knows or cares. It's been a downhill slide into maintenance, tweaks, and minor features that people care even less about from there.

[Truean]

Am I the only person that thinks the world is currently going through massive ethical and moral decay?

(Note: I will delete the quote if you like)

Hi. Have you met me? That's pretty much my deal. My problem is the personal cost to me and others who point this out and are called crazy. They also didn't believe me that bedbugs are real. .

Please do not quote me. Thank you.

[TempAcc]

It does, actualy, thanks Truean. I've always considered myself not susceptible to feeling sad over other people being complete assholes, but if anything being a lawyer has taught me that I can't put up with these things for long if I'm somewhat involved in it (even if just as a lawyer). Its pretty much why I've distanced myself completely from criminal cases (I'm mostly a labor/divorce/tributary/consumer rights lawyer).

It may be because I come from a family of policemen and military officials (a path I may yet take). But eh.

And nah, don't worry about my quotes.

[Tack]

If we're VERY VERY lucky though, maybe America will completely collapse.

Not wishing ill intent- just thinking it would all be easier if America just sold all of its debt to Canada and Mexico.
Or, create the United States of Alaska.

Yeah, from the snippets I've heard, it's pretty damning.
I mean, if what you did was find out about somebody's 1%-style decadent sex-fetishes, and then blew the whistle on them, that'd make a bit more sense about why the other 1%ers don't trust you.
But as far as I'm aware it was a big corruption scandal or something, which is much more perplexing as to people's negative reactions.

[TempAcc]

I actualy know little details of what truean had to deal with (in specifics), but from all that has been posted thus far, it does seem really sucky, specially since it wasn't just someone with lots of money.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[itisnotlogical]

My theory is that people have always been pricks, ever since the first modern human. As the cycle of birth-age-reproduction goes on, children are told certain lies about the human condition but still grow up to realize that people are pricks. Rather than reading a history book and seeing that people have always been pricks, they blame it on that damn talking-picture box those kids are obsessed with, and probably those gosh dern foreigners too.

[TempAcc]

The thing is, one would think that in today's world (IE one in which you, as an individual, is more exposed than ever) people would start becoming less assholish and more self conscious. Suddenly, everyone starts living in glass houses, because you can only hide so much info about yourself. And yet, all we see is that people have completely ignored it and have continued to be huge pricks.

Once, a friend told me that humanity is at its most dangerous phase right now, since we've evolved a great deal in regards to our technology and capacity for affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people, while lacking the moral development to keep us from anihilating eachother out of sheer dumbfuckery.

[Baffler]

Once, a friend told me that humanity is at its most dangerous phase right now, since we've evolved a great deal in regards to our technology and capacity for affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people, while lacking the moral development to keep us from anihilating eachother out of sheer dumbfuckery.

I don't know about that second part of this. We did very well to not annihilate each other in the second half of the 20th century, and the two sides of that conflict could have very easily done so. Governments did a lot of growing up after the World Wars, I think. There's still progress to be made, and wars still happen, but the world has never been more peaceful and that is not a recent trend. I don't think we're at nearly as great a risk of killing literally everyone than we were just a century before. Assuming we'd had the technology to do it back then.

On an individual level, I can't really say whether or not people have been getting worse over the course of our existence because I've only seen a very short span of it. More data is required than I'll ever be able to gather, but someone who's lived for a few centuries might be able to give a better answer.

[IcyTea31]

Once, a friend told me that humanity is at its most dangerous phase right now, since we've evolved a great deal in regards to our technology and capacity for affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people, while lacking the moral development to keep us from anihilating eachother out of sheer dumbfuckery.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.