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IHLaymantoday at 7:24 PM3 repliesview on HN

Wait wait wait. I don’t accept this premise: “But anger is different from anxiety because anger needs to be directed somewhere.” Citation needed; where did this come from? I think it is very possible to be angry without a source or obvious target of that anger; IANAP but my 10-minute googles could not find any authority in the field that would claim this statement.

From the perspective of the article, it seems that not having a target distinction between anxiety and anger would make the two feelings indistinguishable and thus the argument would fall apart. BUT, I do think there is a difference between the rage that comes from anger and the unease that comes from anxiety, and that may be triggered by the uncanny valley feelings from AI or the loss of job security from AI or the feelings of replacement that may come from AI or the environmental concerns that come from AI or the capitalistic underpinnings of the current implementation of AI, the list goes on. Some people may take anxiety from these things, and others may take anger. I don’t see one emotion as being less valid than the other.

Also, I don’t see any use in saying someone shouldn’t be angry or anxious in a particular situation. You can’t control your emotions like that. You can control how you _react_ to your emotions, but not the emotions themselves. I do think that emotional regulation is important in work (and also in life), but that doesn’t mean that you don’t feel what you feel.


Replies

BeetleBtoday at 8:11 PM

> Also, I don’t see any use in saying someone shouldn’t be angry or anxious in a particular situation.

If you make a statement like that, I will have to ask you to reread the article. He's clear in saying:

1. Anger and anxiety should not be conflated.

2. Anxiety is OK.

> You can’t control your emotions like that.

The thesis (by him and other sources I've read) is that anger is an emotion that you do create (most of the time). It's a result of a narrative coupled with another emotion (anxiety in this case). You can't control the anxiety. You can control the narrative in your brain. With certain narratives, you get anger. With others, you don't.

I've known many who've made that journey. It seems the author has as well.

Now if your argument is that it's OK to be angry (you've made the narrative clear in your comment), I won't disagree.

neomtoday at 7:48 PM

Anger is strongly associated with certainty and perceived control, whereas anxiety/fear is much more associated with uncertainty and low control - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7059206/

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fl4reguntoday at 8:40 PM

I think it would be helpful if you could show a counter example of a scenario when someone is angry without a cause or target. On the face of it, that description seems accurate to my experience with anger.