
Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive - wallflower
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/loneliness-can-be-depressing-but-it-may-have-helped-humans-survive/2016/09/02/c01a15f4-38a0-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html
======
PieterH
As if our brains magically emerged from a billion years of evolution with
complex mechanisms that did _not_ help us survive... :)

I tried (like a good nerd) to reverse engineer all our emotions in my book
"The Psychopath Code." Loneliness fell into my group of "Tribal Emotions"
(thus evolved to help us form extended families), and here is how I defined
it:

" _Loneliness_ \- the emotion of being disconnected. You feel physical pain in
your intestines and chest when you see others enjoying themselves. You sleep
lightly and wake often. Your immune system starts to slow and you start to get
sick. Your metabolism slows down, yet you eat more often than usual. Your
circulation slows, and you feel cold."

[http://content.psychopathcode.com/chapter6.html](http://content.psychopathcode.com/chapter6.html)

~~~
maga
>Loneliness - the emotion of being disconnected. You feel physical pain in
your intestines and chest when you see others enjoying themselves. You sleep
lightly and wake often. Your immune system starts to slow and you start to get
sick. Your metabolism slows down, yet you eat more often than usual. Your
circulation slows, and you feel cold.

Is it some sort of a hyperbole or I really have to hate people and be
physically sick to qualify as a lonely person according to psychiatrists?

~~~
sridca
It is well known that stress (which doesn't necessitate hating people; in
fact, merely feeling lonely will do) weakens immune system.

[http://www.apa.org/research/action/immune.aspx](http://www.apa.org/research/action/immune.aspx)

~~~
maga
That's that, but I'd imagine that "feeling physical pain seeing others
enjoying themselves" is something far more serious than just loneliness, maybe
I misunderstand the term.

You rise a valid point though, while often being objectively lonely and
"disconnected" I seldom felt discomfort about it. That would explain good
health marks.

~~~
sridca
I took his "feel physical pain in your intestines and chest" to mean, in part,
that "sinking feeling in the gut" which is due mainly to the stimulation of
the Vagus Nerve[1].

These physical sensations _follow_ the emotion (of loneliness) itself--an
affective experience _preceding_ , and triggering, the physical after-effects
--which PieterH did not speak much about. I wonder why.

[1] See
[https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bakbc/e...](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bakbc/eli5_why_do_we_get_a_sinking_feeling_in_our/?st=isqofg18&sh=ab7034e7)

~~~
888uuii
_raises hand_

I don't feel loneliness in my gut; I feel it in my head.

------
narrator
Evolutionary Psychology is like Leibnitizian Optimisim
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_of_all_possible_worlds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_of_all_possible_worlds)]
where God is replaced by evolution. It does nothing to aid in our
understanding except to reassure us that everything that is is as it should
be. It's essentially an ideology of apathy.

Leibnitz's Argument goes like so:

>1\. God [Evolution] has the idea of infinitely many universes.

>2\. Only one of these universes can actually exist.

>3\. God[Evolution]'s choices are subject to the principle of sufficient
reason, that is, God[Evolution] has reason to choose one thing or another.

>4\. God[Evolution] is good.

>5\. Therefore, the universe that God[Evolution] chose to exist is the best of
all possible worlds.[1]

FYI, Voltaire made a nice parody of this ideology in his book Candide.

~~~
PieterH
There is a profound difference between magical thinking and science. Once you
build scientific frameworks (such as EP is part of), you can move much faster
in interesting and useful directions that may seem unrelated and yet all
connect together.

For example I've used a lot of psychology (based on EP, not Freud) in
constructing communities that build open source software.

And we are using this thing called the "Internet" that lets total strangers
converse, at no cost. And largely built on free and open source. Amazing, huh?

If you believe that science does "nothing to aid in our understanding," and
yet you are quick to profit from the fruits of the rational world that science
built, that would make you rather a hypocrite.

~~~
rdtsc
> I've used a lot of psychology (based on EP, not Freud) in constructing
> communities that build open source software.

Very interesting. If it is not a secret, can you share a list of guidelines or
tips?

~~~
PieterH
Sure, I've written a book "Social Architecture" on this, and many articles.
You can read the book freely at [https://www.gitbook.com/book/hintjens/social-
architecture/de...](https://www.gitbook.com/book/hintjens/social-
architecture/details). It's also in print and Kindle from Amazon.

The psychology of collaboration is (in my model, which is of course wrong,
just accurate enough to be more useful than ignorance) based on emotions that
we've evolved to work together. Most of what I tested and documented over the
last decade came from study of failure (most projects fail and you can learn a
lot by looking into why), and experience of how to make communities that could
survive the kinds of conflict we see. Actually getting a full model for the
emotions took a lot longer, finished that a year or so ago.

You can see the results in e.g. the C4 process, our RFC for working together
in the ZeroMQ community:
[http://rfc.zeromq.org/spec:42/C4/](http://rfc.zeromq.org/spec:42/C4/)

My articles are on [http://hintjens.com](http://hintjens.com), starting in
2010 or so.

~~~
rdtsc
Thanks writing and sharing those. Very good insights there. Also sorry, didn't
recognize your name at first as Pieter Hintjens (I wouldn't have asked as
already had the link to the book in my bookmarks). I periodically refer to
"The Toolbox" when discussing development practices at work.

In professions which are considered more rational and intellectual like
programming, there is a danger of discounting the effect of emotions. Emotions
are always there under the surface guiding and controlling things.

The more rational the person thinks they are the more they will rationalize
their decisions. So when someone proposes using say Protobufs as a
serialization mechanism, instead of Thrift, for example, might be doing it
because the person who likes Thrift in the group offended them somehow. But
that will never come up in the official reason, there will be some benchmark
or list of point why Protobufs might be better.

Or maybe they had a fight with their family and they come to work and start
shutting down a project and shuffling developers around to feel empowered, and
there will always be a seemingly rational reason for it.

Thanks againg for writing that book and sharing your experience. There is just
not enough of that, especially focused on open source projects. Some projects
naturally converge and discover some of those principles from the toolbox, but
having them written down from someone with experience is priceless.

~~~
PieterH
Yes, we tend to discount emotions, our own and others'. It is amazing in
retrospect given how important these are in driving us. What I learned with
groups was to explicitly ask people, "how do you feel?" and then to insist
until I get answers that match what people are showing, rather than saying or
claiming.

Especially, "how do you feel about what person X is doing?"

It's not a gender thing or even a nerd thing, really. It's the same with
musicians, for instance (I used to jam a lot), they can be really reticent
about saying what they actually feel about other people.

Basically our fear of being rejected by the group, and shame at having
feelings that no-one else is expressing make us unable to speak up. Since few
people can debug their own emotional stacks, the fear and shame dominate, and
stop the (e.g.) anger at an asshat messing up the project from coming
forwards.

So actually asking people the specific question can change a lot. Mostly, I'll
start with "are you enjoying this (the way things are going)?" knowing they'll
admit "no" and then we can work it out from there.

------
throwanem
> the risk of dying over a two-decade period was 50 percent higher for lonely
> me

Cri de coeur or simple typo? Inquiring minds want to know!

~~~
PieterH
It's a well known problem with some journalists, they simply can't finish
their

~~~
throwanem
You mean they can't finish their wo

~~~
PieterH
It is incredibly infuriating and yet ye

------
GavinMcG
Previous related article and discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12338817](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12338817)

~~~
rosstex
So how do we reconcile them?

------
anexprogrammer
"3 points by wallflower 1 hour ago "

Nothing against the article, but how is this #11 on the frontpage? Did HN make
ranking easier recently?

~~~
sctb
Ranking is relative, so on less busy days (such as today's holiday in the US
and Canada) stories with fewer points can be ranked higher than usual. You can
always email questions like this to hn@ycombinator.com to avoid cluttering the
discussion threads.

~~~
sundarurfriend
What's the holiday in US and Canada today? It is (was) a holiday in many
places of India too, due to a Hindu festival called Vinayaka Chaturthi.

~~~
whorleater
It's Labor Day over here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day)

