Try watching Forensic Files when you're in the burbs.
Comment on You Ever Watch A Scary Movie or Read A Book and Then Feel Spooked For A While?
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
For a while I lived in the middle of nowhere. Like a 45 minute drive to get to anything but bush. And then we'd watch Unsolved Mysteries on TV and it'd be about some axe murderer in the woods. That was spooky as hell.
Not sure it's mental illness, but instead it's your mind operating as it's supposed to but we've produced media that is extraordinarily effective at causing natural emotions
mayonesa@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
squashkin@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
lol that description of living in the middle of nowhere and then watching a film about a threat in the woods or middle of nowhere so it induces you in to a fear state... exactly what I had in mind.
And as you say, the fears are somewhat rational - maybe there is a threat out there so you should be prepared. But then the fear is irrational too, either there's a threat you are or aren't prepared for (after you have put forth reasonable effort to protect yourself) or there's no threat, so the fear can be kind of useless.
Also I think some mental illness is also just a normal response to an abnormal world.
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
In general, I think it's a recurring theme that our physiology and the psychology on top of that physiology isn't really evolved for modern society. That doesn't necessarily make modern society bad, but it does mean often we're doing things that don't really make sense. If you just ran from a bear and you think you got away, it makes sense not to just turn off the danger alert because maybe the bear shows up again, but I don't think we're tuned for fiction on the level we have it. We're just too good at it!
mayonesa@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
Yeah it kinda does, but there's other reasons it sucks ass too.
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
For the majority of the history of humanity, the main export of the human race was death, and suffering was a close second. If you were concieved, there's always been a good chance you die before you're 5 and there's a non-trivial chance you brought your mother with you. Poverty was on a scale unimaginable today and famine was always a looming spectre. In that respect if nothing else, modern society isn't just not bad, it's great. It has its problems, but we need to keep things in historican context.