To live and live better is the ultimate meaning of all human activities in any era.

Humans have evolved from apes all the way, and there are two instincts that helped humans survive and reproduce in the past, but now they are backlashing against humanssecondary title

In the age of ancient ape-man, the greatest threat to survival came from famine and wild beasts. After cruel and long natural selection,The common ancestor of our mankind eventually became a group of "foodies" and "running men (female)".As soon as they see something they can eat, they try to eat as much as possible, and store fat to deal with frequent food shortages; as soon as they hear the news, whether it is true or not, they run quickly without thinking about it, because companions who react slowly or are too optimistic, In the end, they all died in the mouth of wild beasts.

These two basic survival skills allowed them to greatly increase their chances of surviving hunger and avoiding beasts, survived and reproduced, and these two skills were firmly imprinted in the genes of their offspring, becoming instincts.

However, in modern society, especially today with the rapid development of science and technology, the biggest obstacle to human survival is not the shortage of food: Human beings can use science and technology to provide abundant food to meet the needs of most people. The enemy of human existence is no longer a beast. Now it has been turned upside down, the enemy of wild beasts is human beings, if the beasts evolve to become smarter, they should turn their heads and run away when they see people, so as to avoid becoming extinct as wild game on the dinner table.

The times have changed dramatically, and it is no longer a problem for people to live, and the goal is to live better. The focus of human activities has become to compete for more resources from the same kind, in order to live better than the same kind.

Can humans evolve, like removing the tail, to get rid of the instinct to overeat and overreact to fear? It's not that easy.

From the perspective of biological evolution, as a species, the evolution of human beings is very slow. The speed of evolution is so slow that a single individual can barely feel it happening, and it is so long that ordinary individuals can't see its changes even if they spend their entire lives.

The main reason why human evolution is slow is the long life span of human beings. Before entering into the full development of science and technology, the overall average life span of human beings has reached more than 40 years, which is relatively long compared to most mammals. More and more developed medical technology and continuously improved living standards have greatly prolonged the life span of generations. Now the average life expectancy of people has increased substantially from 40 years ago 200 years ago to around 70 years old. Coupled with the ever-increasing level of humanity, morality and ethics, it is also resisting and delaying the process of human natural selection.

However, on the one hand, human beings are trying their best internally to delay the evolution of human beings; on the other hand, they are wantonly changing the natural and social environment on which human beings live. Ironically, human beings use the same weapon both internally and externally: increasingly advanced science and technology.

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Obviously, the structure of the human body is becoming less and less suitable for the world it has created.

The important task of balancing the contradiction between internal and external changes is entrusted to the most proud organ of human beings: the brain. If we human beings cannot achieve the natural selection of the body by accelerating birth, aging, illness and death, we can only rely on the brain to keep up with the changes through continuous self-regeneration and transformation in the field of thinking. Just like a PC 30 years ago wants to complete the highly complex tasks now, the only possibility is to design a perfect set of software for it, and this set of software needs to be updated frequently.

The human brain is the most perfect "software" created by nature so far, directing the "hardware" that has not been replaced much for 4 million years, to cope with the ever-changing social and natural environments that were unimaginable 400 years ago .

How could the brain be engineered and updated into perfect software to accomplish this feat of balancing internal and external differences?One of the important links is that human beings continue to actively learn and passively accept the influence of society, so as to improve human cognition and obtain scientific, rational and objective judgment.

Even so, the brain still cannot fully control instincts. Some instincts are relatively easy to control, and some instincts are also powerless.

When it comes to overeating, for example, the brain's control over this instinct has had mixed results. According to a research report on obesity published on the website of the British "Lancet" magazine in 2014, one-third of the world's people are now overweight or obese, which has become a serious global problem. The good news is that modern people know that obesity can endanger physical health, damage the external image, affect social status, and even affect the success of finding a partner and career. Therefore, people who pay attention to their weight will rationally remind themselves every time they eat, not to let their instincts go wild, and to control their appetite. If you can't control your appetite by your own reason alone, you can only turn to outside help, such as taking weight-loss pills, weight-loss meals, etc. These behaviors have contributed to weight loss becoming a huge industry.

The instinct to overreact to fear is even trickier for the brain to deal with.

The brain's instinctive suppression of fear overreaction requires two prerequisites, knowledge accumulation and rational thinking, we must have sufficient awareness of the reasons for fear, and at the same time maintain rational, objective and scientific judgments when fear occurs. For example, human beings are inherently afraid of darkness. After all, darkness represents the unknown and danger. However, human beings' exploration of unknown areas, coupled with the use of fire and electricity, has almost freed human beings from the fear of darkness. If there is a sudden power failure one night, I believe most people will not panic because they are afraid of the dark. Or when the sun suddenly disappears on a clear day, we can rationally analyze the possibility of a solar eclipse without thinking that a disaster is coming and be lost.

It is a pity that human beings not only do not have enough knowledge in many fields, but also are irrational in many cases.

Richard Thaler, the 2017 Nobel Prize winner in economics and the father of behavioral economics, said: Human beings are individuals with feelings, souls, and weaknesses. For all uncertain and unknown areas, our behavior cannot Complete rationality is, at best, Bounded Rationality.

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The new crown epidemic incident is a very extreme case, which condenses all the elements that cause panic-induced overreaction.

First of all, the new coronavirus is a brand new virus. Although scientists have done a lot of scientific research day and night, there are still many unknowns about the virus that humans have yet to discover. Secondly, human experience is not useful. In modern society, human beings have never encountered such a serious global epidemic. Although there have been major epidemics like the Black Death in history, the social and living environment at that time was very different from the present, so many experiences have no reference. Humans can only explore forward. The most important thing is that contracting the new crown virus means that there is a risk of death. In the absence of a new crown virus vaccine and antidote, normal people will become irrational when faced with health and life-and-death issues, and they will all have great fear and instinctive excesses reaction.

And society is made up of normal people, so the new crown virus naturally induces rare social and economic turmoil. This is the current situation we are in: countries and cities around the world have been closed one after another, the stock markets of various countries have experienced unprecedented panic stampedes and continued to plummet, people line up to buy daily necessities, and the world is in chaos and panic.

How do we, as individuals, cope with such unprecedented panic?

In these desperate times, it's easy to be overly pessimistic and fearful. Everyone might as well calm down, look a little further, and don't underestimate the ability of human society to overcome difficulties. In a disaster, we will inevitably be confused, confused and uneasy, but as long as we take a longer view, such as 6 months or 1 year, the virus will eventually be defeated, and mankind will still get out of the predicament, just like the comparisons that humans have experienced in the past. Viruses, like other crises, are more severe than plagues.

Choosing how to view the new crown epidemic reflects a person's attitude: choose to be a correct pessimist or a successful optimist. There is a book called "Optimists Win, Pessimists Win" which points out: Successful people, especially in the field of entrepreneurship, are often optimists who are good at finding opportunities when everyone is most pessimistic, while those critics generally analyze They got the right idea, but although they were right, they lost a rare chance of success.

The right pessimist is the darling of the media. With the further expansion of the epidemic, media reports on the epidemic are overwhelming. But the starting point of almost any media is to compete for readers' attention, instinctively negative and pessimistic. Just as food advertisements always do everything possible to induce the audience's appetite, the news media often spare no effort to scare the audience to arouse readers' instinct to overreact to fear, thereby increasing the click-through rate and communication effect. We don't have to be successful optimists, but we can try our best to control the quantity and quality of the media we contact, and avoid being educated into correct pessimists by the generally pessimistic media.

When a crisis occurs, the only thing we can do is to keep calm, use rationality to control instinct, use science to overcome fear, call for courage in the face of disaster, and strengthen the determination of mankind to defeat the virus.

"It's nothing to fear but fear itself that really scares us"

Here's what President Franklin D. Roosevelt said to the citizens of the nation during the Great Depression in the 1930s when he said: "secondary title

Recently, the author has been frequently asked how to deal with the virus epidemic in terms of investment: whether to buy bottom US stocks, whether to buy digital currency, whether to exchange dollars, whether to sell A shares now, and whether now is the time to buy a house. Obviously, investors are extremely confused in such a turbulent market environment, hoping to hear clear directions and suggestions.

These investment questions are extremely difficult to answer. Although the author has his own clear investment strategy and specific operations, he cannot share them with you. "One's honey, that's arsenic". Although there are only two outcomes of investment decision-making: buy or sell, the process of obtaining the decision is complicated and complicated, with many reference factors and variables. It is a mistake to rashly provide investment advice without fully understanding all aspects of the specific circumstances of the inquirer. An extremely irresponsible and unprofessional approach, especially in such a volatile market.

Of course, to untie the bell, one must tie the bell. The most important parameter for any investment decision at present is the direction of the development of this epidemic. In terms of controlling the epidemic, the author is relatively more and more optimistic. The reason is very simple and simple: when the governments and people of all countries are paying attention to it like never before, they say that the most worrying time has passed, and the epidemic will continue to cause large-scale damage and cause the worst consequences. The possibility has become very small. We should have some confidence in ourselves and our companions. Could it be that a small virus cannot be subdued by all the efforts of the whole world? It is not all luck that human beings have survived to become the masters of nature.

In particular, the author is relatively optimistic about the epidemic, not about investment.The transition from optimism about the epidemic to investment optimism requires the cooperation of many factors, including time. One of the important factors is whether investors are still overly panicked and whether they have returned to rational thinking. Only then is the real bottom of the market, and it takes time.

There is a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words (A picture is worth a thousand words), so I would like to borrow "Tiger Hunting" by the 19th century French romantic painter Delacroix for your appreciation and experience. His masterpiece "Liberty Leading the People", which is now in the Louvre in Paris, is more widely known, but it is obvious that "Tiger Hunting" is more appropriate at this time.