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
I think any aliens advanced enough to visit Earth would probably understand it.
Whether it’s horror movies or extreme sports, it is some kind of play, which is about creating a safe or controlled environment to explore things that either isn’t really happening (horror movies) or things that haven’t been tried before (extreme sports).
A lot of extreme sports are actually relatively safe because it’s done by individuals in highly controlled environments. Statistically it’s a lot more dangerous to participate in other sports or everyday activities where there’s a larger risk from other participants or things that are unpredictable. Things like horse riding, traffic and trampolines are more dangerous because they’re more unpredictable. The consequences might be worse if it fails thoughm, making it “extreme”.
Travelling through space to explore inhabited planets absolutely requires the same kind of desire and process of safely testing out things that are potentially dangerous.
I like that “safe space” theory, that seems very plausible.
It’s still a bit messed up though, because that part of our brain can’t distinguish between play fear and real fear, so we get “rewarded” for both which seems like a very risky move, evolutionary.
I can imagine the aliens being like
How did they survive to become the apex species?
Although with all the brinkmanship and poor threat analysis we’ve exhibiting now on a global scale, perhaps we won’t survive as the apex species for long, so 🤷
