Asymmetry

Why do we fear the darkness of the night? Why are there horror stories about dense forests? Why we should never jump into unknown waters? Why we should not catch a running thief? I will answer one by one.

Night means we see very little. But there are animals out there who see much better. And they know how to take advantage of our poor night vision. So nature has ensured it, that we fear being at the wrong end of this asymmetry. Hence darkness terrifies us and rightly so.

In dense forests, there will be people or animals who know every inch of what we cannott see. Now when we enter such an arena, we are once again on the wrong end of the information asymmetry. Hence we are afraid of dense forests and prefer open plains.

When we jump into unknown waters, the rules of the game change. On land, we have built cities and civilizations, we are safe from predators. But in water, we control no territory and we don’t know what’s lurking. We can’t see, nor smell nor hear properly. And we are clumsy. And there are animals trained by evolution to take advantage of such asymmetric edge.

Chasing a thief is pretty common. But there is a saying among the elderly, “chase thieves all day, but never catch one”. All you have to gain is what the thief stole, but the thief has his life to gain. There is an asymmetry in incentives. To save his life he will fight like a feral cat. And it’s not a wise game to play against such odds.