Fear, since time immemorial has been a key driver to human behavior. As kids, humans learn to take their first steps in spaces where they know they have the least chance of falling. Everything from fear of darkness, loud noises, physical pain tend to drive human behavior. Sometimes they don’t even know that fear is driving their decision making. It’s like muscle memory that was first built by some adverse reaction to an event. And that forever planted a fear in the mind. That fear results in a degree of determinism in behavior.

Perhaps this is something that mankind has learned to game. Product advertised on tv, are sometimes designed to implant a fear of not having something. Making the muscle memory of fear driving a product buy! And folks at Amazon thought they could do this with a mathematical algorithm. All they had to do was plant enough fear of not having something, and Mr. Bezos would have had mansion in mars today!