Reminds me of the episode of “Scavenger’s Reign” with the creepy-ass plant-clone thing stalking some of the survivors.
such a great show. thats one of the few shows set on an alien planet that truly feels unnervingly alien
Yes. A dead body.
Or the biological need to be afraid of ourselves because if I saw a human standing in my backyard in the shadows I would be as scared as if it were an alien, humans aren’t a joke when they want to kill or maim and humans love to kill or maim if they need something you have
My brother accidentally cut his foot open with an axe about an hour ago. That’s how much humans love to maim. We do it idly as we work.
Yup. We’re least safe when we most think we’re safe. Architects of self fulfilling prophecies
I’m an engineer actually
That’s a hilarious reply, and I can’t think of a witty response to match it
Yeah that sounds like an architect XD
Fuckin’ savage.
Dead bodies probably, as they spread diseases.
But it’s generally pretty obvious when someone’s dead. More likely it has to do with someone alive who may have a communicable disease.
But it’s not obvious that a dead body is dangerous
And Hulkamaniacs
It would be a evolutionary benefit to fear / avoid any person that is behaving strangely in certain distinct ways. Could be a dangerous transmittable disease, i.e. rabies etc.
That makes a lot of sense👍
It’s probably the entire reason people lost their shit over the idea of catching leprosy.
I mean, we existed as the same time as other early ape species (which we killed off like the monsters we are), so it makes sense.
Killed off, but not necessarily by violence.
We killed them with snark
I think the most compelling theory is we mated them into our communities, while outcompeting for food
Illness, death, and antisocial behavior. All of these were threats we evolved to handle, people who are “a little bit off” in one way or another, who might endanger the group or individual. This, and that our pattern seeking brains don’t like it when something doesn’t easily fit within an existing schema, even more so if it lies just outside of our existing preconceptions.
Obviously, I can’t say that these definitely are the reasons why we experience the uncanny valley, but I think it’s probably a better explanation than… Skin walkers? Or whatever else the meme would be implying.
Still, it’s a cool premise for a horror story at least.
The leading theory is Rabies.
Our instincts draw from pretty far back in our biological origins as well. The notion of mimiclike predators is pretty damned ancient and likely a factor for very earliest common ancestry.
Mimiclike predators sound like psychopaths. Which, very much would be a reason we evolved uncanny valley, but they learned to blend in.
There’s also the concept of gender blindness until it became necessary to differentiate between groups and eventually people.
Sorta like the story of the color blue.
Psychopath isn’t a real mental disorder, it’s just Latin for mentally ill person.
Psychopath is derived from Ancient Greek… And even besides that, laymen generally use the term to describe ASPD despite the two conditions not being entirely the same. Don’t be obtuse.
Yes, I’m aware that the word has been used as a slur against people with ASPD and other mental illnesses, what’s your point?
Hey man as long as you behave prosocially, it’s none of my business what your emotional life is like.
Back 4 million years the whole world really was a planet of the apes. So in some ways recognising something that wasn’t your species, but looked like it might have avoided conflict, loss of territory, loss of food…
Neanderthals and others existed contemporaneously didn’t they…
… but also, so many parts of our brain are needed to do facial recognition that we’re prone to seeing faces where there are none…
…so it’s possible that what we’re on the watch for is other humans trying to ambush us, which means regular people hiding = uncanny valley = fear.
Alternate theory: The human brain is reacting to unfamiliarity and not alien features. We strongly associate Uncanny Valley with things not-quite human but it’s my thinking that it’s a tribal thing. Nowadays we see a ton of faces of all variations but I bet when we were hunter gatherers, we only saw features of our own tribe. The moment you meet another tribe, I’d bet this response is to create fear of the unrecognized human. It’s also probably there as a punishment mechanism for us seeing faces in everything.
The times that the uncanny effect hit hardest is when you think something is human or is a face potentially before finding out you’re wrong. So that’s my basis for thinking its there to keep us from being mistaken.
I was thinking of the Denisovans
Don’t forget Bigfoot, the rake, and skin walkers.
not to mention el chupacabra
edit: dammit I mentioned him
Or it’s just that something feels off, fellow human.
On the other hand, maybe because we’re a highly social species and some people are just crazy, which you see in their face or behavior.
You mostly see this in autistic or ADHD people, even if most of us aren’t dangerous.
That’s a unlucky side-effect of this instinct i think?
The humanoids we evolved from were at one point, not the only humanoids around. We coexisted with other, different species (neanderthals being an example). Homosapien is just the one that survived.
Yeah this is just leftover racism from a time when racism had a reason to exist.
I mean, racism has as much reason to exist now as it ever did. “I’ll protect me and what’s mine” has been the dividing line between species for thousands of years, and we have to choose whether we’ll continue it. A “Kill or be killed” mindset might keep you safe, but you’ll never know if the person you killed did indeed mean you harm, or if you could’ve instead lived without killing, and broke bread with a rival. The logic still applies
This guy knows.
I call this feeling “The Holy Spirit” and no I’m not religious, hear me out.
So there’s “The Father” which is you, in charge of everything.
Then there’s “The Son” which is your Jesus, the bit of you that does shit mostly perfectly without any input from you. The scary example of this is when you drive to work and can’t remember the drive at all. Jesus Take the wheel. Teach your Jesus right and you can trust he’ll do things fine.
Then The Holy Spirit, which is that part of you that sees everything, before the filters are applied, and let’s you know something is off. There’s no obvious reason for it, but there’s something off about this guy and we need to get away from him as soon as possible and never interact with them again.
The Jesus part is the important bit for most of us. Learning to play the guitar? Teach your Jesus. When you’ve practiced enough you can just trust that Jesus will hit the notes while you concentrate on singing along.
When I learned to Juggle I just taught my Jesus how to throw properly so it lands in the other hand.
At work I teach my Jesus how to do the manual labour, do the checks I need to do, and I can concentrate on ripping on my work colleagues.
