Turn Up the Funny

Flipping our emotional switches, Part 2

We are getting closer to identifying the individual emaitional switches in the brain. What might this imply for future strategies for managing our emotions?

If we are now getting a handle on fear, what’s next? What would be the best candidates for future emotional switches?

Anger: Again, to tamp it down. No good reason to turn this one up, right? (We already have social media for that.)

Empathy: Would be great if we had a whole industry focused on cranking this one up. Alternatively, if we could find the switch, this MIGHT be one that we would eventually manipulate against the subject’s will. Violent criminals, for example. But that is an EXTREMELY risky idea.

Sense of humor: If there was one switch a would personally like to see flipped on a vast portion of the population. Like anger, I think this one has been manipulated by social media and other forces. It would be great to find a way to bring it back.

How about the ability to turn  up optimism? What if we could increase our sense of wonder?

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Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

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