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Jay, thanks for this one. I have a particular antipathy for the effect fear has on people, and therefore a deep appreciation for anything that shines a light on its dangers.

I believe that any decision influenced by fear is a bad one. It's one thing to rationally avoid danger or tell children who can't yet foresee consequences to be careful, but as you rightly point out, fear destroys logic. It warps and twists and sends people down dark paths. It's the genie's wish or devil's bargain that always has a loophole ensuring disastrous long-term outcomes. I see little difference between the thought processes of the addict who rationalizes all in support of ingesting their drug of choice and the person who acts in avoidance of fear.

At best, fear makes people compliant and impotent. It typically leaves people living a life of regret with little or nothing to show for their time in the sun, arguably a fate worse than death. At worst, it's a corrupting poison that causes those who let it in it to hurt themselves and others.

Even Yoda pointed out that fear was the first stop on the path to the dark side.

Beyond the destruction of individual wills, fear fosters the mob and groupthink -- the enemies of civilization.

I know, bit of a rant. And no doubt I'm guilty of same bad fear-based decisions myself, but my failures don't make the problems with fear any less valid. Hot button issue for me ever since I saw people I cared about making bad decisions out of fear back in college. In the decades since, what I've observed has only reinforced this perspective.

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