Our brains tell us to avoid people who are sick, even when they don't show obvious symptoms

boing
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Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/06/09/our-brains-tell-us-to-avoid-pe.html

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sick people also emit oxytocin to elicit sympathy from their victims. Moral: sick people will get you if they can so run away.

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I handle via my job pathogens & bacteria daily. BTW: haven’t gotten ill with virus/common cold/flu or cotties in so long I can’t remember. But I may be a modern day Typhoid Mary…

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Sounds legit.

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“Our brains tell us to avoid people who are sick”

And yet I keep coming back to Boing Boing.

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My brain tells me to avoid people, period.

I must be more advanced.

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Points for sick Ren image!

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We are our brains, along with the rest of us. Perception does not suggest a mind/body split.

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My brain is telling me to agree with popobawa4u.

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I am not ‘sick’. I prefer to think that I am “slowly transforming into a wonderful transcendent state of existence that lies beyond the comprehension of your puny human minds”.

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I worked with a guy who disliked and avoided the disabled and infirm. He talked about them behind their backs and said they creeped him out. He also gave women a hard time if they carried a few extra pounds. I always thought he was just an asshole, but maybe he had a highly-evolved sense of illness avoidance.

Naw… He was definitely an asshole.

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Thank goodness there is a system for alerting others about potentially dangerous people…

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To his credit, nature may have saddled him with some overdeveloped illness sensors and a quick sense of disgust. On the other hand, he was definitely an asshole.

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