I don't always fully agree with anecdotal feel good stories that seem to imply a greater universal point due to a by-chance outcome. What if the author had paralyzed the woman? What if he was solely and entirely at fault?
It's nicely written, but it speaks to most people's general positivity bias: our yearning for a benign truth underlying all things that are bad, or more specifically, that bad things aren't really real, that they're a mirage over the real state of all things which are actually good and wholesome and better than you could have even guessed. This is the kind of thinking that inexorably draws miserable people to religions that offer eternal salvation.
> What if the author had paralyzed the woman? What if he was solely and entirely at fault?
In this case his story would have never been written. Thus we get a big survivorship bias to hear only about unlikely events and get some kind of wisdom tidbits from those.
>> What if the author had paralyzed the woman? What if he was solely and entirely at fault?
>In this case his story would have never been written. Thus we get a big survivorship bias to hear only about unlikely events and get some kind of wisdom tidbits from those.
That's not necessarily true. Many years ago, I killed a 77 year-old woman by striking her with my bicycle. Her skull fractured when she hit the pavement. I heard her skull being crushed, but I didn't realize it at the time -- after I realized what that sound was, it's haunted me to this day.
I was completely at fault (I blew through a red light and hit her after avoiding someone else) and while I don't think about it every day any more, I bear the responsibility for her injury, eventual death and the grief it caused her family.
While I don't consider myself a bad or evil person, I made a really bad decision that cost someone their life. And I will bear the guilt of that bad decision forever.
I don't give myself a pass because it wasn't a malicious act, mostly because that poor woman is still dead regardless of my motivations.
I can't go back and change the past, but I've tried to make better decisions since then. That's not enough, but it's all I can do to avoid such things moving forward.
I think magical, positive thinking is protective even in the most dire times or atrocities. This is an intuition that's based on anecdotes from watching the documentary Shoah and reading Man's Search for Meaning, both of which cover how survivors dealt with the Holocaust.
True. If humans didn't have a positivity bias our own intelligence would be unbearable. We have to be able to viscerally imagine and reckon with the worst possible realities while keeping our heads above water. It's also why I believe humor exists: it provides a psychological and social reward for effectively navigating negative circumstances.
I think that people tend to mix emotion and reason too readily. To an extent we are governed by our emotions, but we shouldn't let them consume us. Negativity bias is definitely detrimental but so is positivity bias. That's different from being compassionate. Compassion is a principle, a moral axiom that many people hold, but positivity bias is saying we should feel blindly feel good. We should have a tempered view of our principles and personalities.
Your explanation of humor seems woefully inadequate. What is the corresponding solution to a negative solution in making a dad joke?
It's nicely written, but it speaks to most people's general positivity bias: our yearning for a benign truth underlying all things that are bad, or more specifically, that bad things aren't really real, that they're a mirage over the real state of all things which are actually good and wholesome and better than you could have even guessed. This is the kind of thinking that inexorably draws miserable people to religions that offer eternal salvation.