Profile: The Far Out Initiative - by Scott Alexander
I met a man at an ACX meetup once who claimed he has never felt anxiety, not even the littlest bit. His father was the same way, so maybe it's genetic.
Some people feel more pain than others. The “more pain” category includes some big demographic groups like redheads, who seem to feel some types of pain more intensely and may need up to 20% more anaesthetic, though their exact processing differences are complicated. But there are also various lesser-known genetic conditions that can make bizarre things - water, light touch, mild temperature changes - excruciatingly painful. The most exotic cause of this syndrome has to be platypus venom, which is both painful in and of itself and also seems to increase the body’s overall capacity to feel pain; for years after a platypus scratch, every tiny scrape will hurt worse than usual.
The “less pain” category includes people who say they've never felt pain at all. There's a genetic condition called congenital insensitivity to pain; patients are incapable of hurting. Most of the “purest” cases die tragically during childhood; in a typical story, they rest their hand on a hot stove, fail to notice, and burn to death. The ones who survive usually turn out to have something in between pain insensitivity and pain asymbolia, where they can notice pain but it doesn’t feel particularly unpleasant. This can still be dangerous - imagine having to argue a young child out of putting her hands on stoves - but it’s a bit more survivable, and there are some weird genetic clusters of it here and there. An Italian family with a mutation in ZFHX2 are immune to pain; so are a Pakistani family with a mutation in SCN9A. Some of these syndromes have other weird side effects; the Italian family doesn’t sweat, and the Pakistani family can’t smell.
