Sometimes unconscious/visceral fears are kind of what I thought they were:
If I look down from a tall height, I experience: [vertigo, a slight increase in my heart rate, some similar change in my breathing, a slight increase in my tendency to “freeze” my muscles, a shift in my attention toward the height/downness, etc.].
I might’ve thought this response was a consciously chosen strategy for not falling. Except that it also occurs when I’m walking on a glass floor in a well-engineered building I trust. Still, I conceptualize it as something like “in-built fear of heights; designed to prevent falling but based partly on a bunch of visceral cues that persist even when my conscious mind knows I won’t fall”. My lead “rationalization” for the response (“I’m breathing more shallowly and refusing to walk to the edge of the cliff with you because I don’t want to fall off the cliff”) is at least partly post-hoc, and is causally downstream of a more visceral reaction… that is basically also evolved for not falling off cliffs.
And sometimes unconscious/visceral reactions are just not at all what I thought they were:
Some years ago, I was waiting impatiently for a friend to leave an event we’d both been at, so that I could “go home to do my important work with its urgent deadline.” Then I took a better look at the feeling, and realized that I was actually cold and in need of a washroom. I found a washroom and some warmth, and felt suddenly at ease and untroubled about my task. I’ve related differently to such feelings ever since.
Similarly, some years ago I was hanging out with my cousins around a holiday, and I felt “bored” (as I saw it) “because” they weren’t talking about anything interesting, and I couldn’t share with them my thoughts about anything interesting, such as AI risk. And then we switched board games, and I started laughing more, and I realized that my previous “bored” has actually been made of “socially uncomfortable”. And I got a bit better at identifying the “socially uncomfortable” visceral response, and calling it by that name instead of some other.
The interesting thing for me about the cashier incident above, was the rationalizations my brain produced around the “don’t share my views” impulse in my cashier situation seemed pretty transparently unsound (in my situation, in contrast to e.g. Oliver’s similar instance in-thread, or any number of previous times when I had more plausible … rationalizations? reasons? for not breaking an Overton window). If I was concerned about the cashier’s welfare: yes, she might find it uncomfortable to see our views, but “withholding practically relevant information from someone specifically asking about it” does not seem kind. If I was concerned about causing some sort of social drama that might do me harm: it didn’t seem like there was much plausible harm. (The risk that she might object to selling me the groceries did not occur to me, I think correctly. The 24-hour Safeway just outside of Berkeley may have had different customers than the downtown Berkeley Trader Joe’s that Oliver and Ben Pace mention. She seemed peaceable/stable/normal. I was with my husband, which is probably safer than alone. Etc.) There probably was still more social drama in telling the truth vs in evading, but its absolute amount seemed pretty small, to the point where the normal ratios at which I try to buy [human decency / communication / being helpful and honest] vs [avoiding harm to myself] seemed to pretty clearly favor talking.
So it was more a glass floor situation, than an actually being near a cliff situation. Useful for elucidating things.
And I’m not yet sure what the analog of “avoid falling” is, that this reaction is actually triggered by cues of. Is there a pretty in-built visceral thing for “don’t break Overton windows”, that is quasi-independent of conscious knowledge that you’re safe? Is its true name “don’t break Overton windows”, or something else? What’s up with the way the impulse in me oscilated between selfish rationalizations (“she might harm me”) and morality-related rationalizations (“it’s wrong to upset people”)?
And I’m not yet sure what the analog of “avoid falling” is, that this reaction is actually triggered by cues of
“Falling” might be “acknowledging a truth which someone really wants to keep hidden”? Some related examples:
A totalitarian ruler is trying to maintain a narrative that their country is prospering, by punishing anyone who calls attention to problems
A manager worried about legal liability for a problem, who is trying to avoid the creation of evidence that they knew about the problem
A criminal organization, which punishes anyone who draws attention to its crimes
Someone who would be obligated to do difficult things about the problem if it were acknowledged, who socially attacks anyone talking about the problem
My not-well-grounded impression is that these sorts of situations are common, are difficult to rule out without false negatives, and are at the heart of Maziness.
What’s up with the way the impulse in me oscilated between selfish rationalizations (“she might harm me”) and morality-related rationalizations (“it’s wrong to upset people”)?
If ‘falling through a glass floor’ in this instance is the fear of being humiliated and/or laughed at, you’re definitely not alone in this sentiment. This is probably one of the most common social fears, as it can potentially cause you to ‘fall down’ the scale of social hierarchy, right? Of course this whole Pandemic has turned everything on it’s head, so social norms come under the lens to be reexamined, and who’s to say what the new normal is in these now novel social situations?
Unironically, your canned goods shopping spree is a pretty typical response to a looming catastrophe of almost any kind; growing up poor and hungry I learned the value in a well stocked pantry later in life. Relatively speaking, I can empathize with you about the fear of seemingly disrupting the emotional and psychological status quo of one-time run-of-the-mill social interactions under extreme conditions. Trauma does bad things to people.
I tend to live in very poor, under-served, and neglected conservative areas these days—not really by choice—but I have found it to be really taxing for navigating normal life much less the ‘new normal’ of the Pandemic. All the stores I shop at seemed to resist the whole mask mandate, while disbelieving the experts about the entire Covid Pandemic. Not only was I bombarded with nonsense and conspiracy theories at every turn, I was often one of the only people in the store wearing a mask.
Over the weeks and months, I saw shop keepers start to put on masks when they saw me walking up to the front door and, believe it or not, the more I had this experience, I actually found myself starting to worry I was making other people uncomfortable with my mask wearing, and that maybe I should remove my mask.
Just for the sake of ‘fitting in’, even though I really don’t identify with my local community on a whole range of issues regarding values and such, I contemplated putting my life at risk. At times I still feel the need to change some of my preferred natural, healthy behaviors to ‘fit in’ with people I think are ill informed and irresponsible (possibly even stupid and crazy.) Go figure.
Sometimes unconscious/visceral fears are kind of what I thought they were:
If I look down from a tall height, I experience: [vertigo, a slight increase in my heart rate, some similar change in my breathing, a slight increase in my tendency to “freeze” my muscles, a shift in my attention toward the height/downness, etc.].
I might’ve thought this response was a consciously chosen strategy for not falling. Except that it also occurs when I’m walking on a glass floor in a well-engineered building I trust. Still, I conceptualize it as something like “in-built fear of heights; designed to prevent falling but based partly on a bunch of visceral cues that persist even when my conscious mind knows I won’t fall”. My lead “rationalization” for the response (“I’m breathing more shallowly and refusing to walk to the edge of the cliff with you because I don’t want to fall off the cliff”) is at least partly post-hoc, and is causally downstream of a more visceral reaction… that is basically also evolved for not falling off cliffs.
And sometimes unconscious/visceral reactions are just not at all what I thought they were:
Some years ago, I was waiting impatiently for a friend to leave an event we’d both been at, so that I could “go home to do my important work with its urgent deadline.” Then I took a better look at the feeling, and realized that I was actually cold and in need of a washroom. I found a washroom and some warmth, and felt suddenly at ease and untroubled about my task. I’ve related differently to such feelings ever since.
Similarly, some years ago I was hanging out with my cousins around a holiday, and I felt “bored” (as I saw it) “because” they weren’t talking about anything interesting, and I couldn’t share with them my thoughts about anything interesting, such as AI risk. And then we switched board games, and I started laughing more, and I realized that my previous “bored” has actually been made of “socially uncomfortable”. And I got a bit better at identifying the “socially uncomfortable” visceral response, and calling it by that name instead of some other.
The interesting thing for me about the cashier incident above, was the rationalizations my brain produced around the “don’t share my views” impulse in my cashier situation seemed pretty transparently unsound (in my situation, in contrast to e.g. Oliver’s similar instance in-thread, or any number of previous times when I had more plausible … rationalizations? reasons? for not breaking an Overton window). If I was concerned about the cashier’s welfare: yes, she might find it uncomfortable to see our views, but “withholding practically relevant information from someone specifically asking about it” does not seem kind. If I was concerned about causing some sort of social drama that might do me harm: it didn’t seem like there was much plausible harm. (The risk that she might object to selling me the groceries did not occur to me, I think correctly. The 24-hour Safeway just outside of Berkeley may have had different customers than the downtown Berkeley Trader Joe’s that Oliver and Ben Pace mention. She seemed peaceable/stable/normal. I was with my husband, which is probably safer than alone. Etc.) There probably was still more social drama in telling the truth vs in evading, but its absolute amount seemed pretty small, to the point where the normal ratios at which I try to buy [human decency / communication / being helpful and honest] vs [avoiding harm to myself] seemed to pretty clearly favor talking.
So it was more a glass floor situation, than an actually being near a cliff situation. Useful for elucidating things. And I’m not yet sure what the analog of “avoid falling” is, that this reaction is actually triggered by cues of. Is there a pretty in-built visceral thing for “don’t break Overton windows”, that is quasi-independent of conscious knowledge that you’re safe? Is its true name “don’t break Overton windows”, or something else? What’s up with the way the impulse in me oscilated between selfish rationalizations (“she might harm me”) and morality-related rationalizations (“it’s wrong to upset people”)?
“Falling” might be “acknowledging a truth which someone really wants to keep hidden”? Some related examples:
A totalitarian ruler is trying to maintain a narrative that their country is prospering, by punishing anyone who calls attention to problems
A manager worried about legal liability for a problem, who is trying to avoid the creation of evidence that they knew about the problem
A criminal organization, which punishes anyone who draws attention to its crimes
Someone who would be obligated to do difficult things about the problem if it were acknowledged, who socially attacks anyone talking about the problem
My not-well-grounded impression is that these sorts of situations are common, are difficult to rule out without false negatives, and are at the heart of Maziness.
If ‘falling through a glass floor’ in this instance is the fear of being humiliated and/or laughed at, you’re definitely not alone in this sentiment. This is probably one of the most common social fears, as it can potentially cause you to ‘fall down’ the scale of social hierarchy, right? Of course this whole Pandemic has turned everything on it’s head, so social norms come under the lens to be reexamined, and who’s to say what the new normal is in these now novel social situations?
Unironically, your canned goods shopping spree is a pretty typical response to a looming catastrophe of almost any kind; growing up poor and hungry I learned the value in a well stocked pantry later in life. Relatively speaking, I can empathize with you about the fear of seemingly disrupting the emotional and psychological status quo of one-time run-of-the-mill social interactions under extreme conditions. Trauma does bad things to people.
I tend to live in very poor, under-served, and neglected conservative areas these days—not really by choice—but I have found it to be really taxing for navigating normal life much less the ‘new normal’ of the Pandemic. All the stores I shop at seemed to resist the whole mask mandate, while disbelieving the experts about the entire Covid Pandemic. Not only was I bombarded with nonsense and conspiracy theories at every turn, I was often one of the only people in the store wearing a mask.
Over the weeks and months, I saw shop keepers start to put on masks when they saw me walking up to the front door and, believe it or not, the more I had this experience, I actually found myself starting to worry I was making other people uncomfortable with my mask wearing, and that maybe I should remove my mask.
Just for the sake of ‘fitting in’, even though I really don’t identify with my local community on a whole range of issues regarding values and such, I contemplated putting my life at risk. At times I still feel the need to change some of my preferred natural, healthy behaviors to ‘fit in’ with people I think are ill informed and irresponsible (possibly even stupid and crazy.) Go figure.