We are constantly broadcasting emotional data

5/31/2026 at 4:41:54 AM

There is a crazy guy in our neighborhood, not unlike the one in the story.

He would walk around the streets all day, yelling, and swinging fists exactly when someone passes by him.

People from the neighborhood know him, and are not afraid. He never actually hits anybody, no matter how near his fists come to you.

One day, I saw the guy passing near the photo studio in my building, and the fake Santa that works there said something to him. Our crazy guy stopped and they had a conversation. I was passing by, and from the little I overheard he sounded like a completely normal person. Totally not matching his everyday crazy behavior.

I have no idea what made this transformation possible. My theory is that the Santa guy was probably a neighbor of his, and knew him from before he went crazy.

by obezyian

5/30/2026 at 9:43:55 PM

TFA reminds me of a story that Sting used to tell about "disarming" crazy and/or drunk people in NYC by quoting Shakespeare at them (e.g. yelling "My mistress' eyes are brighter than the sun!" directly at them). He claimed it worked every time.

by PaulDavisThe1st

5/30/2026 at 9:49:06 PM

As absurd as it sounds, their brains had to find something to associate that context with. He gave off a signal, and they had to interpret it somehow. Maybe it was so absurd and out of context it just switched the entire context of what they were being processed at the time.

We're like walking flash drives constantly associating, downloading and updating our storage.

Disarm people with absurdity. I'd rather not test it out though

by tonyrice

5/31/2026 at 5:46:12 PM

Related, if someone looks like they will get violent with you, ask them "Who won the game last night?" and slug them while their brain pauses to process and answer the question.

by runamuck

5/30/2026 at 11:30:47 PM

He used that line as an album title too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_Like_the_Sun_(album)

by mjklin

5/31/2026 at 4:22:38 AM

Yeah, that's when he used to tell this story.

I misquoted the line, using "brighter than" instead of "nothing like".

The title was apparently based on his use of that phrase.

by PaulDavisThe1st

5/31/2026 at 12:54:31 PM

And this is why I drink to hide mine.

by doublerabbit

5/31/2026 at 1:17:07 PM

Unfortunately, we share the same boat :-X

by KellyCriterion

5/31/2026 at 3:04:03 PM

microexpressions, man.

by m463

5/30/2026 at 8:58:22 PM

I'd like to have these 5 minutes of my life back please.

by hypfer

5/30/2026 at 9:07:24 PM

What did reading this open up for you?

by tonyrice

5/30/2026 at 9:25:40 PM

A new tab.

by hypfer

5/30/2026 at 9:30:53 PM

lol that brought some joy to me. Thank you for your time

by tonyrice

5/30/2026 at 8:54:24 PM

> If you got this far, then you might be wondering what any of this has to do with Corporations using emotional insights that they collect from people.

I read the whole thing and I'm still not getting it.

More broadly, yes emotions are meant to be shared. As someone with emotions, I'm already aware of this. I'm broadcasting mine right now... underwhelm.

by sublinear

5/30/2026 at 9:08:17 PM

I read it that strong emotions have a signature that's processed differently in the context of data points vs the context of human interaction in meatspace.

It feels to me like an intro to a deeper insight that's missing the main body of the piece.

by jazzcomputer

5/30/2026 at 9:21:22 PM

Yes, removing ambiguity can trim too much away. If we could describe what that is, it would not have been thrown away.

That is an interesting idea because we see this loss everywhere even in writing, photographs, etc. long before we ever considered "data points". It's such a profound loss that when an artist manages to capture even a tiny glimmer of emotional ambiguity they are hugely celebrated.

We are all starving for this while the world we build insists on throwing more and more of it away.

by sublinear

5/30/2026 at 9:12:57 PM

One of the things that I've noticed is there's an aversion to people noticing their emotions, companies analyzing that data, "men sharing their feelings" and the way that I've come to process these things is that at the end of the day they're all signals.

For example the gentlemen that we crossed. His rage, contempt, anger, disgust, whatever it may be, was a signal and the way that we interreacted had a profound impact on the other signals that came to surface.

I believe when we look at these signals from a functional perspective and truly consider the "subjective" nature of the signals, then it makes sense that they are some of the most important signals we have.

You put your hand in hot scolding water, most people immediately take note of the signal and act accordingly.

There's been a lot of devaluation on the actual supportive and objective nature of our own emotional and cognitive signals.

The mere idea that a corporation is tracking emotional data becomes absurd because at the end of the day, we're all kind of doing that ourselves. The tone of how we associate is a bit dysfunctional if you ask me.

by tonyrice

5/30/2026 at 9:06:45 PM

One of the beliefs that I conjured up, is that we're broadcasting these signals whether we intend to or not.

There's a lot of conflict around sharing emotional signals intentionally without realizing we're already doing that.

I personally believe that emotions are best to be understood regardless of what party is considering them, businesses, partners, society, etc.

by tonyrice

5/30/2026 at 9:47:33 PM

I’m just gonna take this chance to drop a rec for Joe Hudson’s work for anyine interested in learning more about emotions and how to work with them in yourself and others. It’s been super impactful for me. (YouTube/podcast)

On this point in particular (that we’re broadcasting these signals), in one of the AoA courses I took there’s an exercise where you and a partner take turns guessing at the emotion the other person is feeling. You’re just staring into each others’ eyes on zoom, and one person is going “angry. sad. joyful. fear. Angry again.”

When I was the guesser I had no idea if I was even in the ballpark.

But when the other person was guessing my emotions, they were probably 70% accurate with what I was feeling. We discussed afterward and they had the same experience (I had apparently gotten most of them right). It was wild.

by dceddia

5/31/2026 at 8:59:54 AM

[dead]

by Lapsa