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cousin_it comments on Why *I* fail to act rationally - Less Wrong
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Emotions can also have a lower time preference than your conscious self. For example, a surge of anger can make you stand up against a bully and win much more than the present confrontation in long term self-respect and respect of others, even if you eventually "lose" this particular conflict. My subconscious is always tracking the intangible "social" terms of my long range utility function, and over the years I've come to appreciate that.
I'd describe that as a situation where your long-term interests and your very-short-term interests gang up on your short- to medium-term interests.
A great description, funny how it applies to other emotional acts such as cheating on your spouse (increase reproductive chances while risking comfort of family life). It might be enlightening to think of some emotions as optimizations for the very long term - for you and all your descendants (makes sense as emotions were created by evolution) - and the rational mind as optimizing for the short to medium term..