What would aliens think if they leaned we evolved fear as a survival mechanism, but we intentionally seek out situations that trigger our fear response, for fun?
Horror movies, extreme sports, thrill-seeking, it’s all weird.
Edit
Changed the title and added an extra line to make it clear I’m talking about the fear response, and not specifically about extreme sports
They would think that we create sport out of pushing our physical limits so as to advance our physical limits at an optimal pace.
“The human performed two whole rotations! And while doing so, they removed their vehicle, spun it around their body, and placed it back beneath their feet before landing! However, clearly the humans valued the human who performed two and a half rotations a lot more. They call home ‘Tony Hawk’”.
Extreme sports was more supposed to be an example. Horror movies are the same.
People go out of their way to feel scared, what would aliens think of that?
I thought I was the only person who felt that way! It makes me so angry when people with spouses and kids or even parents who love them do hyper dangerous sports. Like surely there has to be something more worth doing that doesn’t orphan your children??
(Obviously any sport has some risk as do things like driving, I’m referring to things like free diving or free climbing where there’s no way to have a real safety net)
Im gonna edit my post because everyone is too hung up on extreme sports.
Horror movies also fall under the same category of thing. It’s not about the risk, it’s about triggering fear response. I just picked extreme sports because I couldn’t fit the whole premise in the title
I mean, yeah fear is a big part of extreme sports, but it isn’t the attraction. You never heard Tony hawk say “hey, watch how scared I get when I attempt this trick”. That’s not the point. It’s about the satisfaction of improving motor skills and the ability to move in new and interesting ways. But mostly it’s just fun. Really it’s not so different from skill-based video games, it’s just that in real life you have to work your way up to the more advanced stuff to do it safely.
Maybe I’ll edit my post because you’re not the first person who misunderstood. I’m specifically talking about thrill seeking, not extreme sports specifically. I couldn’t fit the whole premise in the title so I just picked an example 😭