When Emotion Breaks Equilibrium

Converting Anger into Institutional Design

Recently, I had an unusual experience.

I tried to use my anger strategically.

Not by shouting.

Not by insulting.

But by observing. Analyzing. Calculating.

I found myself thinking:

 What words would unsettle him?

 Which arguments would hit a weak point?

 Which position would force a response?

It sounds cold when written like this.

But it wasn't. There were strong emotions involved.

Strangely, the analytical process wasn’t painful. It was intellectually stimulating — almost exciting.

The person on the other side publicly supported libertarian ideas and spoke confidently about rational systems. His arguments were grounded in theory, particularly game theory, and he presented himself as a rational actor within that framework.

The relationship was not equal.

For a few months, I was clearly more emotionally invested than he was. From his perspective, I may have looked like a younger, inexperienced woman reacting emotionally.

The beginning was my immaturity.

He drew boundaries at some point. I saw them.

And yet, I kept testing how far I could step in before the reaction changed.

Part of me wanted to stay connected.

Part of me wanted to end it cleanly.

---

Where Does "Superiority" Come From?

Throughout our exchanges, he positioned himself as the one who teaches.

Near the end, he used phrases like "for your own good" and "grow up."

Why do people take the upper position in tense situations?

Age?

Education?

Status?

Those factors matter. But I realized something deeper may be at play: when tension rises, people try to stabilize the relationship by defining hierarchy.

It is not always about dominance. Sometimes it is about control.

I was angry.

But I was also observing my anger.

At one point, I thought, This sentence might shake him.

And I sent it.

It was too aggressive.

Afterward, I felt immediate regret.

That moment taught me something important:

When you fight with words, you must decide in advance what lines you will not cross.

---

Silence as Strategy

What fascinated me most was his use of silence.

While I tried to provoke reaction through words, he minimized response.

From a game-theory perspective, it was rational. Silence conserves energy. Silence prevents escalation.

I respected that.

And I realized something about myself.

What I actually wanted was not emotional drama.

I wanted intellectual resistance. Someone who would hit the ball back.

---

When Logic Fails Under Pressure

Through this experience, I understood something I had previously written about in theory:

Under stress, humans betray logic.

Not just others. Myself included.

He mostly maintained his strategic tone. But there were moments when irritation slipped through.

And I, who claim to study systems and crisis prediction, let emotion override calculation.

Neither of us behaved like perfectly rational agents.

That realization changed something for me.

Libertarian theory often assumes rational actors.

Markets are modeled on equilibrium.

Game theory relies on stable decision-making.

But emotion is a variable that destabilizes equilibrium.

Even Nash equilibrium can collapse when pride, fear, or insecurity enter the system.

In a strange way, I demonstrated this myself.

Discomfort mutated into aggression.

That was the variable I had underestimated.

If emotion is a destabilizing variable, then any system that aims to preserve freedom must account for it structurally.

---

Human Emotion as System Risk

This experience clarified my early political intuition:

When humans are pushed into extreme stress, we often abandon logic and prioritize self-preservation - sometimes through aggression.

If freedom is to be protected, systems must account for emotional instability.

Markets do not collapse only because numbers fail.

They collapse when panic spreads.

Money - whether paper or crypto - loses value.

People do not calmly accept that. They react.

Food does not magically appear. Security is not guaranteed.

Emotion becomes systemic risk.

Ironically, I want to research crisis prediction and institutional stability.

Yet I also became part of the very phenomenon I want to analyze.

That contradiction humbled me.

---

Structure Over Personal Victory

Did I "win"?

It depends on the metric.

My demands were not met. In that sense, I lost.

But I kept my dignity.

And I sharpened my thinking.

So perhaps I gained something more valuable.

I realized I enjoyed testing the structural limits of his ideological position.

But spending that energy on one person is inefficient.

If I enter European academia, I will meet many people like him.

Perhaps one day, when I have my own credentials, conversations will feel more balanced.

And then the debate will not be personal - it will be productive.

That is what I want.

Instead of using energy to defeat individuals, I want to design systems that do not collapse

under emotional pressure.

That is why my focus became clear:

Crisis Prediction AI Systems

 - Economic crisis forecasting

 - Political instability modeling

I do not want to become an engineer.

I want to work on institutional design.

How autonomous should AI be?

Who supervises it?

How should international agreements be structured around it?

If freedom is to survive, it must be supported by resilient systems.

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About Dislike

To be honest, I dislike him now.

Not because he treated me as inferior.

 But because, under stress, he said something that contradicted the principles he publicly defended.

Perhaps it was just a moment.

Perhaps I will do the same one day.

If so, I must hold myself to the same standard.

He has networks, connections, advantages.

But success is rarely just about intellectual purity. It also involves timing, opportunity, structure.

That realization was uncomfortable.

Not everything is meritocratic.

Some will say:

 "Reality is unfair. Compete harder."

Perhaps.

But if systems were designed so that truth and competence did not require perfect positioning, perhaps more people could live honestly.

Would that not be a deeper form of freedom?

---

He was not meant to lead me to success.

But without him — without confronting this dynamic — I might not have recognized the structural tension between ideology and human psychology.

I might not have reached this turning point.

Sometimes losing something clarifies direction.

This experience did not defeat me.

It exposed the variable I had been ignoring.