this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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It's weird that we enjoy stimulating our fear response (lemmy.ca)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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What would aliens think if they leaned we evolved fear as a survival mechanism, but we intentionally seek out situations that trigger our fear response, for fun?

Horror movies, extreme sports, thrill-seeking, it's all weird.

Edit
Changed the title and added an extra line to make it clear I'm talking about the fear response, and not specifically about extreme sports

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[–] CoffeeJunkie@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago

This is actually really funny because I think Michael Knowles talked about this exact same thing either 2 or 3 days ago. The conclusion was: we have these instincts. Some people just really like exercising them, and others, they're exercising fear/horror/disgust in a safe, controlled environment because that helps to prepare them for the fears, horrors, disgust they'll face in real life.

Not that they're thinking that consciously. But subconsciously.