Mainly wording issue?
a. Your "Fear" := well considered respect; rightly being wary of sth and respond reasonably to it
b. "Fear" we fear too many fear too often := excessively strong aversion that can blind us from really tackling and rationally reacting to the problem.
To me personally, b. feels like the more natural usage of the word. That's why we say: rather than to fear and hide/become paralyzed, try to look straight into your fear to overcome it (and to essentially then eventually do what you say: calibrated and deliberate action in the face of the given risk..)
Really, it's different kinds of fear, and different tolerances for different anticipated pain. Enterpreneurs tend to have fear of mediocrity rather than fear of failure. I really disagree with the implied weights in your assymetries:
Consider the asymmetry: You can ask out 100 people, apply to 1,000 jobs, or launch 50 failed startups without any lasting harm, but each attempt carries the possibility of life-changing rewards. Yet most people do none of these things, paralyzed by phantom risks.
Not universal at all. For some, getting rejected by 2 is crippling. I could barely apply to 20 jobs over 6 months when I got laid off a few years ago (I'm a very senior IC, and applying is not "send a resume", it's "learn about the company, find a referral or 2nd degree contacts, get lunch with senior executives, sell myself). I've launched only 3 startups, one of which did "eh, OK" and the others drained me, and I'm well aware I never want to do any of that ever again.
If you say, "get tough, so it doesn't hurt as much to fail", I kind of agree, but also that's way easier said than done. I fully disagree that it's only about fear, and fully disagree that this advice applies to a very large percentage of even the fairly well-educated and capable membership of LessWrong.
Basically agree: I have tried considering what is most likely to get me killed (in everyday life). This was a while ago. I am now pretty scared(/respectful?) of cars. Reflection seems to work okay at calibrating emotions. I hope LW gets a couple more posts considering emotions and virtue–perhaps a small shift from the utilitarian consensus.
I learned about the virtue of fear when preparing for my wife's childbirth, in "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth." Counterintuitively, mothers who have the least fear of childbirth tend to have the worst outcomes. Giving birth is complex and risky. Moms who either dismiss all concerns or defer all fears to the medical system end up overwhelmed and face more medical interventions. The best outcomes come from mothers who acknowledge their worries and respond with learning and preparation—separating real risks from myths and developing tools to mitigate those risks.
This principle extends beyond the delivery room. Success in life isn't about dismissing fears or surrendering to them, but calibrating them to reality and developing mitigation strategies.
Our ancestors faced legitimate, immediate threats: exposure, predators, hostile tribes. Fear kept them alive. This evolutionary programming now misfires spectacularly. In the modern world, we fear harmless things while ignoring real dangers. We're terrified of rejection, public speaking, or starting that side project—none of which can actually hurt us. Meanwhile, we casually engage in genuinely dangerous behaviors without a second thought.
Consider the asymmetry: You can ask out 100 people, apply to 1,000 jobs, or launch 50 failed startups without any lasting harm, but each attempt carries the possibility of life-changing rewards. Yet most people do none of these things, paralyzed by phantom risks.
Conversely, the real modern killers operate silently: texting while driving, chronic sleep deprivation, processed food addiction, neglected relationships. These generate no immediate fear response because they lack the evolutionary markers of danger—no fangs, no cliff edges, no angry faces.
The solution isn't fearlessness—it's fear intelligence. Map your fears against actual probabilities and consequences. Fear the right things: the compound effects of daily choices, not the one-time embarrassments. Fear stagnation more than failure. Fear the known regrets of inaction more than the imagined disasters of trying.
True courage isn't the absence of fear—it's the presence of calibrated fear coupled with deliberate action.