
The Paranoia Parameter - goldfish
https://www.adamjuliangoldstein.com/blog/paranoia-parameter/
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hyko
This is BS. You can be aware of existential threats, and respond to them
appropriately without feeling the slightest bit anxious or paranoid. It's
called planning.

The personal founder experience related here has value, but trying to create
this big theory of psychology from it is not helpful, nor are the
extraordinarily tenuous links to panic buying and immunology.

edit: This comment reads quite aggressively, which was not my intent. I just
want to provide a counterpoint because I don't believe the central thesis is
correct, as it runs counter to my experience. Someone might still find it
helpful as a model though.

I guess the more you know, the more threats you can perceive, so at some point
you just have to turn the limbic system off. The amygdala is not yet
compatible with Wikipedia. i.e. there are existential threats that make the
COVID-19 crisis seem like a picnic, but if we can't do anything to mitigate
them, why worry?

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goldfish
If you are able to deal with existential threats without "feeling the
slightest bit anxious or paranoid," you are very fortunate and not the
intended audience :)

I agree, however, that planning is often helpful for reducing anxiety, insofar
as it reduces uncertainty.

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medymed
From a medical perspective this is quite a hand-wavy fever dream
interpretation of the immune system and psychology/psychiatry. It’s like
saying you should use python instead of rust because it’s syntax more
appropriately recapitulates the essence of human neural connectedness (or
whatever). There are many types of paranoia (not one dimensional) and they
don’t seem to all be trainable.

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medymed
On second thought, I do appreciate fever dream interpretations of things as an
intellectual challenge and really enjoyed reading the article.

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bernardlunn
Fascinating. People with PTSD (of whatever variety) are hypervigilant - not
much fun but good for survival

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waterhouse
The author doesn't mention, in "Mental Vaccination", the possibility of
learning from _other people 's_ experiences, or perhaps from accurately
simulated experiences. That seems to me like the best way to mentally
vaccinate: gaining the lessons through something other than the hard way.

~~~
goldfish
That's what the next essay is about: how to move the Paranoia Line

