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Raoul589 comments on Stupid Questions January 2015 - Less Wrong
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I don't think I've ever experienced schadenfreude. As in, I'm not even sure what that emotion is supposed to feel like, from the inside. I get the impression that the few people I've said this to think that I'm lying about it for signalling purposes.
Is it common just not to feel schadenfreude, like not ever, for any reason? Lately I've started to wonder if I've been committing the typical mind fallacy on this.
I feel it, but it's a weak emotion. I could easily imagine going without it.
Do you find any slapstick or dark comedy funny? I'm curious.
I don't think so, I've never read of a case of it. I think most folks feel schadenfruede.
That's an emotion humankind can do without, but that idea makes me wonder about the ethicality of genetically removing the potential for specific emotions.
Removing the schadenfreude response from humanity as a whole would - I think - be a beautiful thing, but lacking this emotion has certainly been damaging to my own personal fitness.
How?
If a rival in some competitive domain (think work, or romance) is falling behind me, instead of feeling happy about this (schadenfreude) I feel sad and I tend to dissipate my own relative advantage by trying to bring my rival up to my level.
I also have limited emotional motivation to take revenge or even strategic retribution (because I don't enjoy the suffering of those who wrong me). I get angry or morally outraged, but anger can only take you so far - you need to be able to follow through with the punishment. So when I play real life zero sum prisoner's dilemma style games, I tend to cooperate far too long before punishing defecting opponents.
Basically, lacking schadenfreude makes it so that I don't feel any strong desire to defeat or punish anyone, even direct rivals or wrongdoers.