D'oh, thank you

I’m not as convinced as you are that perceptual grasp of relative object size is innate. See recent research in Molyneux’s problem: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molyneux%27s_problem

Hi Hoseja—

I am indeed talking about ground effect–that's why I included a link for "flying close to the surface reduces aerodynamic drag" which explains how it works.

I also specifically addressed how algorithms differ from memes in footnotes 4 and 14.

Curious to get your thoughts.

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It does include a survival penalty for a false attack. I laid out the assumed payoff matrix here: https://www.adamjuliangoldstein.com/blog/paranoia-parameter/.... The penalty for false positives is also baked into the simulations (see first few lines of code here: https://github.com/adamjuliangoldstein/anxiety_algorithms/bl...).

Hi all, this is a follow-up to two essays:

1) The parallels between anxious ideas and immune system threat prediction (discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22475370)

2) The game theory of determining which imagined threats are worth our attention (discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22760540).

Thoughts and feedback welcome as always :)

You'll get no argument here that it's hand-wavy! My goal was to point out that both our immune systems and our minds are imperfect at assessing threats and we can suffer greatly as a result. I'm glad you still found it thought-provoking.

If you are able to deal with existential threats without "feeling the slightest bit anxious or paranoid," you are very fortunate and not the intended audience :)

I agree, however, that planning is often helpful for reducing anxiety, insofar as it reduces uncertainty.

That's what the next essay is about: how to move the Paranoia Line

Thanks for sharing! I agree that certain anxieties are "rational." As I mentioned at the end of this piece, my second essay in this series will be about why people get anxious about different things. Look forward to hearing your thoughts on how my model for that compares to your research.