[leoedin]

The platform thing is an interesting take. If you're invested in a platform, you really really don't want it to turn out that it's not the winner. Then you have to throw away all the sunk cost and learn a new platform - suddenly all your investment counts for nothing. So you defend it - out of fear that your investment might be irrelevant.

I read a few years ago "under all anger is fear". I'm not sure if that's completely true (hanger is a thing), but I think it's right most of the time. I've found it very useful when I feel angry about anything to take a step back and think about what I'm afraid of - that's usually the thing that really needs to be addressed.

[bryanrasmussen]

I'm pretty sure people get angry about being taken advantage of and treated unfairly, I suppose that can also be ascribed to fear but I think you have to do too many rhetorical tricks to make it work.

[leoedin]

It's not much of a rhetorical trick - anger for unfair treatment is driven by a fear of loss of power, status and control.

[bryanrasmussen]

yeah if someone is passed over at work for a promotion they've earned making the fear argument is possible (that they fear they will lose status as you say, or maybe get fired) - but really at that point it's in the past. Fear is a future directed emotion.

It seems to me that the anger is not driven by fear of loss of power it is driven in a case like this by envy of the reward one lost out on. by envy of lack of access to more power.

I am in a very unfair relationship right now and my anger is not fear driven, as in what will happen in the future, it is generally anger at what is the current situation. Thoughts of - If they had not done X I would not be in condition Y.

To turn that into a fear situation you have to ignore what I say is the cause of my anger, then postulate something like "he fears condition Y being permanent, or condition Y turning into condition Z" when condition Y should provide ample grounds.

Actually the more I think of this fear thing as the root of anger the more messed up it seems to me, because it seems structured around people never caring about their current or past situations but only about the future, and I don't think real people act like that.

somewhat facetiously - Are you sure this fear theory wasn't created by an economist?

[EGreg]

I think anger is a human response to unfairness, its function is signaling and calling attention to a willingness to escalate.

Animals have similar emotions. Bruce Shneier has written a great book “liars and outliers”, which talks about how we maintain the trust society needs to operate.

Studies it cites have shown that people are willing to take a loss to punish others who they perceive are cheating and breaking rules, especially if they do it all the time.

Anger is often the response by those affected, and to a lesser extent those who enforce norms, to systematic rule breaking, and accomplishes the two things:

1) Unmistakably calling attention to the issue and oneself

2) Signaling a willingness to escalate to mutual loss if need be, if the behavior persists

So, to say it’s driven by fear is too reductionist! It serves a major function in human interactions. Consider Steve Jobs’ reaction when Google was going to go ahead with the Android.

Finally, if you want to avoid anger in your own relationships, the key is to hold people to a lower standard and expect less of them as ethical and rational human beings. People find it hard to do because, to stop fighting with someone, you have to greatly lower your respect them in certain areas. But the funny thing is, they will often appreciate you for doing this, and never wanted that respect! Not really, anyway.

[paulryanrogers]

As to relationships, consider that sometimes anger comes from others' expectations of you. That isn't something easily changed, and accepting their demanding ways may just enable bad behavior.

[AlchemistCamp]

If you take food away from a dog, it gets angry. It's not afraid of losing something else; it's pissed off and willing to fight because it disliked what you did. Ditto if you give one chimp cucumber for doing the same task its neighbor gets grapes for.

Our limbic system isn't that different.

[zubspace]

The thing is, migrations are kind of a choice. Either you migrate or you don't. It's up to you.

I understand the need for fundamental changes and Open Source projects are basically free to do whatever. Maybe something needs an overhaul, maybe the landscape changed, maybe there's a need to change the foundation to make the project more future-proof.

But, I can fully resonate with Armin Ronacher's [1] viewpoint, that instead of acknowledging that these migrations are painful for everybody involved, the maintainers or the community often turn this around into "Everyone who does not upgrade misses out" which causes emotional distress.

So actually you do not have a choice. You migrate or are left behind.

Moreover this affects decisions in the corporate world. Do you chase after the bleeding edge or use stable frameworks which are guaranteed to be supported for more than 10 years? I believe, that is the reason many corporations are so entrenched in the Microsoft stack and Open Source could definitely try to be more sensible in this regard.

[1] https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2019/12/28/open-source-migrates/

[hammock]

>"under all anger is fear"

Google anger is a secondary emotion for more on this

[nindalf]

Fear leads to Anger.

Anger leads to Hate.

Hate leads to Suffering.

Yoda.