[extropy-chat] Fear and Hope

Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu
Fri Jul 15 01:00:29 UTC 2005


Perhaps this is obvious to others, but it recently occurred to me that hope
usually needs something more specific to latch on to than fear does.  You
might fear strangers in general at night, but you need to know something
specific about a person to feel hope about him.  You might fear death in
general, but you need to hear something specific about a medical treatment
to have hope in it.

Similarly it seems to me when descriptions of a future technology are very
vague, fear is much easier to generate than hope.  But when the description
of a technology becomes more specific, hope is easier to find.  Genetic
engineering in general easily inspires fear, but a specific genetic
technology that might eliminate a specific disease inspires more hope.  If
true, this suggests that a technology category will be seen more favorably
by people if they do not think much about it until more specific instances
are identified.

Thus, for example, it was likely a PR mistake for nanotech supporters to
raise public attention about nanotech well before any more specific
technologies were available for hope to latch on to.



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323 





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