Raoul589 comments on Stupid Questions January 2015 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Gondolinian 01 January 2015 02:30AM

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Comment author: Raoul589 06 January 2015 01:37:20PM 0 points [-]

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.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 06 January 2015 02:05:43PM 0 points [-]

How?

Comment author: Raoul589 07 January 2015 03:33:58PM 2 points [-]

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.