Slashdot Mirror
Revenge Really Does Taste Sweet
Wizzy Wig writes "The Toronto Star is reporting on scientific experiments showing a link between revenge and the 'pleasure center' of the human brain, thus putting a nature spin on something heretofore thought of as a nurture based, or learned, emotion."
Revenge is always one of those things that, besides are better ethics not too, always makes one feel good.
.
It's never a matter of being right or wrong, it's that feeling of justice I suppose, the feeling that we have, in our eyes, made things right in the world
Of course, it's also immensely selfish and one sided.
Cheers,
James Carr
Anyone have any good ones?
A little behind. If this could have been posted before the NY Times article went archival...
any human could tell you that. Who are these scientists? aliens?
did you forget to take your meds?
How is this slashdot worthy? Are we all a bunch of revenge-warring geeks looking for some deserved payback on the bullies of yesteryear?
Anyway. I'm not really sure what the point of this research really was. We all knew that revenge makes us feel better to some point. I would rather see a study on the long term effect of that exacting that revenge on those who wronged us. The aftermath of it all. I didn't see anything where they followed up with those men they studied to see how they felt about it a week, a month and a year later.
It may feel good at the moment, but what affect does it have on us emotionally in the long run?
If we knew that it might make us think a little more carefully or less about exacting our revenge upon people.
But then again, knowing people, it probaly would not change things one way or another.
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
After 17 years of marriage, a man dumped his wife for a younger woman.
...including the curtain rods.
The downtown luxury apartment was in his name and he wanted to remain there with his new love so he asked the wife to move out and then he would buy her another place.
The wife agreed to this, but asked that she be given 3 days on her own there, to pack up her things.
While he was gone, the first day she lovingly put her personal belongings into boxes and crates and suitcases.
On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things.
On the third day, she sat down for the last time at their candlelit Dining table, soft music playing in the background, and feasted on a pound of shrimp and a bottle of Chardonnay.
When she had finished, she went into each room and deposited a few of the resulting shrimp shells into the hollow of the curtain rods. She then cleaned up the kitchen and left.
The husband came back, with his new girl, and all was bliss for the first few days. Then it started, slowly but surely. Clueless, the man could not explain why the place smelled so bad.
They tried everything; cleaned &mopped and aired the place out. Vents were checked for dead rodents, carpets were steam cleaned, Air fresheners were hung everywhere. Exterminators were brought in; the carpets were replaced, and on it went.
Finally, they could take it no more and decided to move. The Moving Company arrived and did a very professional packing job, taking everything to their new home...
What this means to me is that, if we want to be civilized humans, we have to go against these basic, animalistic instincts. There are lots of things that feel good in the short term, that we'd all love to do, that stimulate the same pleasure centers in our brain... but if we want to be able to function as a society, we pretty much have to learn to value the common good over petty revenge. Then again, there might be a logical reason for this connection. Take the highway example mentioned. Perhaps, by not letting the person back in, we're making it so that he won't be in a position to cut more people off... thus increasing the common good. So, do we let him back in and face his poor driving once more, or do we respond in kind? On a basic, primal level, we choose the second. However, I think that revenge tactics like this are only effective in the short term. In more long-term situations, like trying to function in a community where you interact with the same people every day, revenge only invites escalation, whereas forgiveness diffuses the problem before it can. Is anyone else here thinking "Prisoner's dilemma"?
Love the Third Amendment?
Many animals display social behavior - from ants and termites to blue jays, llamas, dolphins, monkeys, and people. Is it really so surprising that these organisms (including people) might have a built-in, evolved accounting system for social relationships -- if A cheats me, it feels good the cheat A back. The basic tit-for-tat strategy is very well known in iterated game theory so its no surprise that it might be hardwired into social organisms.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Here's a link to the same article from CBC. I have to say, this seems to be one of those things we don't need to be TOLD are true. Everyone knows that getting revenge feels good (temporarily anyways).
You get a pleasure rush as a result of extreme pain. It makes sense that you'd get a pleasure rush in the same fashion by taking revenge, an emotional analogue to endorphines if you really think hard enough about it.
A woman finds out that her husband is cheating on her while stationed in Saudi Arabia. So she sends him a very special care package. He is very excited to get a package from his wife back home. He finds that it contains a batch of home made cookies and a VHS tape of his favorite TV shows.
He invites a couple of his buddies over and they're all sitting around having a great time eating the cookies and watching some episodes of South Park.
Right in the middle of one episode the tape cuts to a home video of his wife on her knees giving his best friend oral sex.
After a few seconds, he does his business in her mouth and she turns and spits the load right into the mixing bowl of cookie dough. She then looks at the camera and says, "By the way, I want a divorce."
Is it a dish best served cold?
CJC
Revenge-a dish best served cold.
Someday, I hope that Larry Ellison has the sweet taste of victory over Gates. Although, he did get too feel that "pleasure center" of his brain tweaked once in the late 90's when Oracle's stock price overtook that of MSFT.
-------
artlu.net
Now we know why every movie villain takes two minutes two tell the protagonist how he is going to finish him off, and proceed to take over the world. ...even though it usually leads to their destructiong. You're wired to feel good about doing it. And here I thought that was -bad- writing.
anyone who's ever played a first person shooter could tell you this. There's nothing sweeter (and more selfish) than following around someone who's just foiled your most intricate stealthy plan, killing them again and again as they spawn, to the detriment of your team.
JERRY: What is the point of all this?
GEORGE: Revenge.
JERRY: Oh, the best revenge is living well.
GEORGE: There's no chance of that.
Free XBox, PS2
The exultant cry of vengeance!
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
One of (American or British, can't remember) soldiers that fought in WWII said in one interview "Yes. I was killing. And I enjoyed that. And I feel ashamed.". It was first and last interview, he refused to give any after that.
Many things can give pleasure. Take a look at computer games, their aim (let's say DOOM3) and realize the fact, that this - not "winning" the whole game itself (as it's impossible in most multiplayer games) - is pleasant.
Killing, destroying, burning, making money in not-always-legal ways, ruining other people. Yes, that can give pleasure. Thanks to computer games everyone can do these things without harming anyone.
I remember reading an interesting game-theory book (Robert Axelrod) that stated, basically, that reciprocity promotes cooperation. In other words, tit-for-tat is a good strategy.
After I read the book in college, I actually employed the strategy in everyday life. My experience also suggests tit-for-tat works. One guy did a bad deed; and I responded in kind. It did feel very satisfying to get revenge-- like an intrinsic form of justice. He didn't do it again.
As long as you respond proportionally third parties don't look down on you and you don't have to worry about the same person screwing with you again because they learn the lesson of reciprocity.
ONE CAVEAT: Don't use tit-for-tat on crazy / unstable people. They're liable to respond again disproportionately. There the strategy doesn't work so well.
That's my experience.
Despite thoughtless moralizing (or ethicizing), think about this for a moment.
Revenge is a deterrent factor. If you fear revenge, you either have to be less of a bastard or a total bastard. It raises the bar for bad behavior.
It's far from a perfect control on bad behavior (a certain percentage of people will interpret the rule as "try to ensure the victim cannot get revenge"), and perspectives are often skewed on who started what, but there is a form of control here that at least works sometimes.
This pleasure response is there for a reason. Revenge works. Sometimes.
Revenge is only unethical to the extent that the target gets more that it deserves (or you get the wrong target, or you deserved what you got in the first place).
Now, being quite imperfect, we get the "system" screwed up a lot. Which is why a lot of people want to avoid the principle at all.
But like the "violence never works" crowd, as long as they insist on platitudes that are demonstrably untrue (and they deny basic physiological/psychological principles), they will have a big fight on their hands.
On the other hand, the better you understand your behavior, its causes and results, the more control you can have over it.
Sadly evolution has probably coded that revenge is sweet, as long as it is somebody lower in the pecking order.
Letter To Iran
they got it all wrong
That's why we do it. We are basically unthinking animals with a thinnest gloss of culture. But we still have brains that require very little thinking, and don't depend on language and culture. And all this 'altruistic' punishment goes out the window if the enforcing individual gets the same response from the dopamine system as a cocaine hit. There is nothing altruistic about, merely another selfish response coming from the distant past through the most primitive parts of our brains.
Well, I guess that didn't quite work as expected, did it now, buddy?!
It's just like ice cream!
I think if you revenge for something, you actually want to show your victim that you can "also do that", and the victim is not superior to you, and can push you around.
so revenge is an act who increasess self-esteem which gives satisfaction (this is clear, I think).
therefore it's not an instinctive thing, rather a "point-of-view"-thing which comes out of rationality.
I myself think, I am superior if I stay with my ethics and do not hurt people in revenge. That doesen't mean I wouldn't hurt people at all, but not in revenge.
This gives me satisfaction, too.
"...thus putting a nature spin on something heretofore thought of as a nurture based, or learned, emotion."
:)
Tell me if you think I'm wrong, but what does this have to do with nature versus nurture??
Both genetics and environment (learning) affect brain connections... all these scientists did was show that a connection exists between revenge as a behaviour, and a sensation of pleasure.
I'm speaking as a neurogeneticist, and I don't see any relevance to the nature versus nurture debate (which, by the way, is SO 1940s... get with the complex, wholistic 21st century, man!
And I won't even comment on the whole false cartesian mind-body duality thing implicit in your statement.
South africa had seen a very bitter and long conflict not just between white and black but between whites and whites. Brown and black. Black and black. Zulus where used by the white goverment as a way to keep the ANC down. People from india where put in a middle position. Jews were on the outside white but just as prosecuted.
So why was there no revenge? Their sure was enough on all sides to be bitter about.
Because all sides realized that revenge was not an option. Even the neo-nazis realized that either there was peace or they were going to get slaughtered.
Peace was possible because no side wanted to risk war.
An example to the world that we can rise above ourselves. And sadly one that is almost impossible to duplicate. Usually at least one side thinks that he will win the war. The person cutting you off doesn't consider that he will die horribly in an accident or that you will gun him down. The rapist does not consider he will go to jail. The troll does not consider that someone will look him up and punch his face in.
South africa didn't take revenge because they were afraid of what revenge would do to them.
So I disagree with out. I think revenge is very usefull. Most usefull when both sides fear the potential of revenge.
The extreme side of the lack of fear of revenge are terrorist attacks. Al Quada could attack because they didn't fear anything america could do back. Or do you really think Osama Bin Laden gives a damn about the people on his side killed?
On the other hand america can act like a real prick because it does not live in fear that someday the world will get revenge. Look at vietnam. America slaughtered yet lives free from ever having to face the consequences.
Revenge is sweet but the fear of revenge keeps humans "civilized" where civilized translates as "from bashing each others head in".
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Stalin said the greatest joy,was to set up the process of revenge,crushing the enemy,then going off to bed!
watching a docu on Stalin on history channel,comparing Stalin who slaughtered 20 million of his OWN people,10 million others, to hitler,who slaughtered 10 million,you see revenge in action.
Which is why nations do not extract reparations and humiliate the loser,as was done to Germany WW1,which led to WW2.
A few thoughts on this: The report on the research did not say if the subject measured by the scan was also interviewed to confirm his feelings at the time. My parents taught me (for better I think) to not be one to take revenge. The Bible says revenge belongs to God, and gives guidance to leave God that opportunity. My wifes cats even have begun to learn some small measure of restraint, can't we humans? In the traffic instance, every act of sanity and kindness can be multiplied down the road by the recipients and witnesses as can every act of selfishness and selfish revenge. What kind of traffic conditions do you prefer? Can a policeman enjoy his job? Does he derive some of these benifits acting on bahalf of others?
Will this new light cause us to rethink our ideas about "nature" v. "nurture"?
Check out this article. It talks about "altruistic punishment," which is exacting revenge on behalf of a stranger.
We Live in a World where people have been 'Taught' that revenge is justice and feels good. We see examples of this all ours lives. Wouldn't growing up in such a world, with these cultural influences cause an association between pleasure and Revenge? Without these Cultural influences would this association exist?
So is his chosen messenger! Along with their imaginary miracles, and imaginary feats, and imaginary messages.
PheeR Primitive Superstitions - Destroy Religion before another human is murdered over it or another war is waged over it.
PheeR Primitive Superstitions - Read a book that is full of facts instead of fiction and a little more up to date.
PheeR Primitive Superstitions - Religion is the root of all evil.
Reality 1:0
"Humans create fairy tales and stories for that which science cannot explain yet."
How does this put a "nature" spin on this? What if there's just a "satisfaction" area that "lights up" whenever anything that is satisfying (whether learned or innate) happens? These brain imaging studies are out of control.
I tried telling the judge that I had a sweet tooth, and couldn't help but to shoot her for it.
Somehow he didn't buy it.
For some (most), this article rings true, but for others, I'm sure they are wriggling in their seats saying "No it doesn't!." Revenge can only feel good if your acting on your ego-centric tendencies - congrats, your acting from a subhuman level - fooling yourself into thinking that what your doing is right even though you know that what your doing is just as wrong, if not more so. If you truly love someone and they do something wrong or negative towards you (only in your opinion - not necessarily in theirs), your telling me that the only thing that makes you feel good is if you hurt them too? That's sick... as in mentally sick - you need help. Most people (like the feces-spreading woman) might get a kick knowing that her former husband has a smelly apartment, but after awhile I would imagine that guilt would set in (or atleast I hope it would), since she LOVED The guy for a LONG time. How can you people just turn love off - yes, even if someone just cheated on you. If you get pissed and can act in this vengeful way then you obviously never loved them and have just been fooling yourself into thinking that you do - in other words - you don't know what love is.
If your spouse of 5 years all of the sudden doesn't have as much interest in you any more, and has a loving interest in another person (not just a fuck-biddy, but a real relationship), you can either try to screw them over somehow, or LET THEM GO BECAUSE YOU LOVE THEM. Most people are almost ALWAYS acting from their ego-centric parts of their mind - in other words - they know not what they do. If you recognize this, you can actually love someone for WHO THEY ARE, and if at one point down the road they do something that you don't agree with - you don't throw all that away, judge them unworthy, and bust out the acts of vengeance - you grow by understanding that they need to live their own lives and so do you. You feel peace in knowing that you can let them go without trying to hurt them back - eventually in life, they will realize that they left a perfectly nice person who was always there for them - not their last vengeful memory of someone trying to fuck them over - then you've just converted all love to hate - this is NOT where you want to be.
As for the car example - its YOUR decision to get pissed off and then its YOUR decision that "getting back" by so vengefully driving by them (ooooh) feels good. A lot of people have decided to feel this way (they don't realize that their choosing - they think its natural human behaviour!) and so the article is true for most people, but its painfully obvious that people do not have to be this way at all. Why do you let a guy who drives beside you and "gets in line first" bother you? The guy must have all the power in the world if he can get you totally pissed off just by driving by you - or is it that you are the most powerless? Perhaps you think you are powerless and that makes you sad/mad (can you say headgames?). Therefore, the only thing you think you can do is to drive by the guy and hope that your 5 second delay really bothered him. Congrats, you are now super-powerul - feel good about yourself.
For a second there, you had the power to let him in and show that you are above all that childish "me first, me first!" crap, but you blew that for a cheap thrill that if you thought about it, you shouldn't really be having. Turns out your still children but with X number of years of hiding/transforming your childish tendencies as effectively as possible - so effectibve that you don't even realize it - not even when your called on it in an article such as this one.
The key is to actually CHANGE your behaviour to grow and feel at peace, not just change its form so it can make you act the same way with some new made-up justification.
You create your own reality - Leave mine to me.
Okay, so science has finally proven that (or perhaps more accurately "how") Man is inherently corrupt. I guess all those centuries of religious rhetoric weren't entirely wrong. Or, more specifically, for those who believe that Man can be made good with the right environment, etc. how do we respond?
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
this doesn't have anything to do with changing the nature vs nurture arguement. anything we are taught to feel good about would cause the same release of endorphins. The experiment is interesting but i don't see how it has anything to do with NvsN.
the pleasure center of the brain!
Duh.
There is something about knowingly inflicting pain upon someone that doesn't sit right with me. There are some posts here with creative accounts of spousal retribution. But life probably does not handout hilarious situations especially in the matters of heart. There have been incidents in my life where I got to the position of getting even. And moments before I was going to act it out, it occured to me "not worth it man". Maybe 'casue it was going to leave a bad taste anyhow.
It's too bad that in many western societies Justice is almost equivalent to Revenge.
This may be a little offtopic...
Justice should never appeal to the "lower" human feeling, but rather be designed to prevent crime from happending in the first place. Revenge has no place in Justice as it does nothing to "undo" the crime after it happened.
Crimes are prevented by:
- Eliminating the reason (for example poverty and social inequalities).
- Education (for example learn to deal with jealousy, envy, and other desires and feelings in a non-violent way)
- Deterrance (if you commit a crime, face the consequences).
- Reparation (not preventing anything, but necessary to repair the damage caused - this is not revenge!)
This is a big difference, although in practise the differences are subtle; i.e. are you locking somebody up because of revenge or deterrance?When somebody is punished for a crime, there should be no pleasure and no feeling of revenge or even accomblishment! Rather there should be the urge to understand why the crime happened and the understanding that this is necessary to deter the next.
If you wait long enough the body of your enemy will be found floating down the river. Not sure of the origin of this saying, but the basic message is that the bastard deserving revenge has already (or will) piss off other people to the point that the revenge you wish to do will be performed by someone else and the police won't go looking for you. Meanwhile you can point and laugh, and boy does that feel good, even better than revenge actually.
1.Netcraft confirms:In Soviet Russia all your base welcomes a beowolf cluster of CowboyNeal overlords. 2.? 3.Profit!!1!
As Gandhi said
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
Python script to convert photos into "artsy" portraits: http://p2pbridge.sf.net/pyPortrait/
But, uh, human life is rather common and cheap these days. The world's population is exploding and that means that there's a lot of surplus people around. So perhaps it's best just to execute the serial killers rather than spend too much time trying to understand why they do what they do.
You have correctly identified the large surplus population in the world, but you fail to understand how nature usually deals with this problem.
People fight to survive. We have been doing this for ages. Warfare, in its organized form, directly came about due to competition over scarce (for ancient technology) farmland. There would be no phalanx formation, or body armor, without surplus population.
The best way to deal with surplus population in our age of nuclear weapons is to institutionalize combat. There should be judiciary, only referees. All disputes should be settled in the combat arena, and the judge determines if the fight was fair.
This would get rid of a huge number of inferior people, such as the obese and physically defective.
There are a million ways we can incorporate combat into our civilization again before we become wholly inhuman pussies who can barely walk let alone fight.
We must raise our children to crave the taste of blood, and strive for physical AND intellectual perfect.
The warrior culture must return, less we all are destroyed.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
and I always heard it tasted like chicken.
around 2600 (? or more) years ago it was known that:
...
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... [revenge is] sweeter far than trickling honey
Homer
The Iliad (book 18, 109)
<URL:http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134;query=car
here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3601134.stm
News for nerds? Stuff that matters? I saw this on the local news yesterday.
Do you honestly believe that humans are totally creatures of base instinct, with no mental controls at all? I don't think that's true in the slightest. Yes, there are definite factors that can influence human behaviour, but at no point does the upper-most level of the human mind have a lack of control.
We're socialized to see revenge as a good thing. When was the last time you saw media that showed someone getting revenge, which was portayed as justified, and then the revenge turned out to be a thing that caused more troubles? Hardly ever. Most of the time, people commiting revenge are shown as vigilante heroes.
People use base human instincts as justification for a lot of things. The nazis used it as justification for killing jews, homosexuals, and other "deviants" that didn't fit the mold of the kind of society they wanted to live in. Argueing for stupid ideas like, " Going against basic instincts can eventually cause insanity or at least mental instability." is the same stuff that backs up vicitimization of rape victims. "He couldn't control himself, he needed an outlet for his sexual tensions -- she was asking for it by dressing that way."
Abhorent is the moderation I'd like to apply to your post and to this story.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
i sent this email to the journalist. this BS really pisses me off: your article is based on flawed conclusions. this is the kind of stuff that makes the valid science of genetics nothing but mysticism and pop culture ignorance, and sadly the geneticists themselves are to blame, and not the media. all the study concludes is that it feels good to be revengeful. well, of course it does! people enjoy being vengeful! that doesnt mean its not learned. the mind can learn to activate pleasure centers... its pretty a pretty well designed system. saying that enjoying revenge is natural is like saying that building sky scrapers is natural, because, "a recent study found that a large percent of countries build sky scrapers". they tested pleasure centers, woop dee doo. what about long term health and stress affects of people who enjoy revenge or causing people pain "judiciously". i'm sure risking your life to cut someone off, and having "pleasure centers" activate really is true happiness, especially the chronic fatigue, stress, paranoia, and hatefulness that comes with living your life like that. pk
i sent this email to the journalist. this BS really pisses me off (sorry, that before was me, i didnt mean to post anonymously):
your article is based on flawed conclusions. this is the kind of stuff that makes the valid science of genetics nothing but mysticism and pop culture ignorance, and sadly the geneticists themselves are to blame, and not the media. all the study concludes is that it feels good to be revengeful. well, of course it does! people enjoy being vengeful! that doesnt mean its not learned. the mind can learn to activate pleasure centers... its pretty a pretty well designed system. saying that enjoying revenge is natural is like saying that building sky scrapers is natural, because, "a recent study found that a large percent of countries build sky scrapers". they tested pleasure centers, woop dee doo. what about long term health and stress affects of people who enjoy revenge or causing people pain "judiciously". i'm sure risking your life to cut someone off, and having "pleasure centers" activate really is true happiness, especially the chronic fatigue, stress, paranoia, and hatefulness that comes with living your life like that. pk
Good, bad... I'm the guy with a gun.
It's not revenge that's the issue it's the coping with the feeling of being meligned; as well as the somatic bit about taking care of yourself. Read historical acounts from say greece about war they all tell ya' that combat and defense as a rush is schweet.
Maybe this explains why cops get off on cracking the skulls of those they perceive as violating the social order. The article seems to support this as its thesis, rather than pure revenge. It talks about the same satisfying sensation from not allowing people to cut you off in traffic.
Cops are just pleasure junkies after all!
And I, for one, welcome our new dorsal-striatum-revenge-zombie-slave-soldier overlords!
:-)
Oh come on, you had that coming.
Keeping the meme alive! (or at least on life support)
Who are the naive fools that 'heretofore' thought that wanting to get even was a 'learned behaviour'?
The greatest pleasure is to defeat one's enemy
-Genghis Khan (greatest conquerer)
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
all you guys who modded me down. Enjoy your next reboot. Bwaaahaa haaa ha ha!.....
Table-ized A.I.
Revenge in the Christian religion is right out, in all circumstances. In no case should an individual take revenge in the case of being wronged. The reason is two-fold: Christians should forgive, just as they have been forgiven in Christ's atoning sacrifice, and revenge is God's prerogative. All harms done against other people are ultimately seen as attacks on God.
In this life, perfect justice is never possible; however, the state is an instrument of God's justice, as imperfect as it might be. The reason one should not take things into their own hands is it demonstrates a lack of faith in God's final justice. Either the offender will be paid for his transgressions, or if the offender is a Christian, Christ paid for his transgressions.
This may seem hopelessly unfair, buy why? God is vindicated and is proved just, and people are punished according to their deeds. The only unfair part are those who go free because Christ paid the penalty for what they did. This is the Christian definition of love. While we were taking pleasure in our revenge for cutting people off, Christ died to restore those who would turn from their vengefulness and place their trust in his sacrifice on their behalf. This is also called grace, or unmerited favor.
One final note: In the Christian religion, God is the standard of justice. Because he is seen as the author of creation, he has the right to make the rules, which people have a natural tendency to rebel against. It is this attitude of rebellion that leads to people taking "justice" into their own hands. It is also this attitude of despising all authority that threatens to separate them from God forever.
It's good scientists and general people are focusing more on emotions and thoughts these days. But forgive me for saying this, but these people haven't got a clue about the powers of the mind.
;-)
Science would like us to believe that we are like machines. If X happens, then we feel Y, etc. Just like a nice automaton.
But personal experience tells me, maybe I'm wrong, I'm just suggesting this for now, that we DECIDE how to feel every moment! We may not be aware of it on a daily conscious-level however, and then we fall victim to circumstances and events. (Note: I'm not discussing the scientists PERSONAL beliefs here, they MIGHT have a clue, and want to steer the boat on the right course.. I just feel it's going a little slow, and want to contribute my share..)
So these experiments tells us what is commonly happening when people experience an event they recognize as "sweet revenge".
But if these people were aware of how little they actually are, especially when doing this, when they need "revenge" for some arbitrary small thing that happened to them in the past, I doubt they would feel that sweetness. They would feel small and stupid, because of their AWARENESS of the fact.
So being AWARE, you can transform a petty little "sweetness" feeling, into... well, anything you like, I suggest, again I might be wrong. In my experience, when you get above/below/inside the world and how it works, you feel natually BLISSFUL. What's the point in all this, when you can just laugh at all the foolishness and say SXBLXyNGZ? Or something similarly silly?
But it's not silly. A state that is independent of any external event. It's a natural state, it's just that we're so used to the idea that we should do this work and that thing, earn a little more, so that we can buy that or get laid with this chick, so that we'll definately, absolutely positively, become happy, in the future, maybe, if it all works out the way WE WANT IT TO...
Desires.. Funny how the world works, or seems to work anyways. We spend most of our lives waiting for happiness in the future, missing out all the opportunities that are POURED DOWN on our "daily lives". It's amazing really, when you start to take notice, things start happening more and more.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Do you think it was fear that made Nelson Mandela handle the situation like he did? He could easily be murdered by some blacks who REALLY wanted revenge, just like he could have been executed or whatnot in many situations.
Don't glorify fear. Fear makes people make BAD decisions. They tend to panic and lose perspective. Fear has nothing to do with this, although a little fear is always good for staying alive.
It's about seeing how small we really are. What does one life matter, my life? I can go without a new DVD-player, if it could help the situation. When you recognize how little you are, demands starts to dwindle and you can relax and enjoy life on a completely different scale. Even when everything is dark and black, you know, that all is transitory, things will change. It always does. Even when you're depressed, there's a spark inside you that knows it's just your way of expressing yourself right now, that it'll change like everything in this world.
When you start to recognize these things, you can start making DECISIONS and ACTIONS, and not RE-ACT your old behaviour patterns all the time. You become aware of more and more how the mind plays tricks on you. You stop identifying with personality traits and expand your vision of being larger than petty small things in a small life.
A mature sould like Mandela knows all this, and lives by it, putting down/accepting his fears. For that he and his likes should be respected and emulated. It's not like it's anything extraordinary: Every human being possess the potential of something "extraordinary", if we just start LIVING the knowledge, the extraordinary becomes ordinary. Life becomes extraordinary! Why do people want ordinary lives? Well, they get what they want, always!
So while a little fear may be good for survival, carrying out a peaceplan like this require a mind transcendent of fear and courage. It just knows what is the RIGHT THING to do, and is very careful about stepping on others' Right Thing to maintain harmony..
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Thanks for posting that! Always a pleasure to know one is not alone in thinking that way. Excellent put!
You might want to read my two last posts, maybe you'll find them interesting.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Revenge is always sweet. If its not sweet its something else...like F*cking Yourself for example.
Thus:
Dude 1: Did you get revenge? (notice sweet is not necessary here)
Dude 2: No, I just really fucked myself.
Whoever said it... Khan, Quentin Tarantino; they captured an essential part of the concept of revenge. The victim (or deserving target) of revenge is caught unsuspecting and off-guard. It cannot just be another parry to an immediately preceding punch in a fight. That is why revenge is so sweet, and evil.
You gotta admit. Nothing is remotely satisfying as salting the earth of your enemy's homeland.
Now there's a good day's work. Like you go home, knowing, 'Hey, I did some good today. Lets go out and do some more of that tomorrow.'
here's the email i sent to the harvard guy:
i read an article about your conclusions on revenge in the toronto star ( http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pag ename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1 093558209949&call_pageid=968867505381&col=96904887 2038 ), and frankly, i think it is ridiculous. i have never been so outraged by an article that i have sent an email to a journalist before. which i did a few hours ago, and now i am sending an email to you. i would like to preface this with saying that i think science is an important field, and that i in no way doubt your validity as a researcher, or your expertise, and in no way claim to know more than you. of course, revenge feels good. we all know that. but your research is being used to portray a biological rather than mental derivation of this pleasure. a large part of the fields of psychology, genetics, and other such related disciplines fall into the trap of "if i see the body doing it, its biological". the body and the mind are interconnected, and can not be seperated. for example, psychiatry claims that "ADD" is a lack of dopamine in the brain, which they take to mean that "ADD" is hereditary, because it is "biological". there is one thing that they overlook all too often (besides the fact that they cannot measure this), and that is that your body makes things it uses, and doesnt make things it doesnt use: when it makes things it doesnt need, that is called an illness. if a child is brought up in a stimulant rich environment, or have emotional issues they want to avoid, they will not concentrate on one thing for a long time (either because they are not used to it because of mediums such as tv and internet, or because if they think of something too long, they will not be distracted, and will start to mentally drift toward unpleasant or troubling thoughts, which is just a type of coping), which then means they are not using dopamine as often as a "normal" person, so their brain would not be making it. this type of flawed logic is what makes me not take science seriously. in genetics, they say that if a behavior runs in a family, it is genetic, never minding the fact that people are highly influenced by their families, and that they have no genetic proof that these "behavior" genes that refer to very specific thing exist; a fundamental fact of human nature is that people act like the people they love, and people try to act more like the people they love (the broadest definition of the term, and again, act like doesnt mean in obvious ways, in subtle ways, speach patterns, movements, hair, clothes, interests, hates, hobbies, dreams, fears, and any combination thereof), so needless to say people will act like their families. that is not to say that no behaviors have a genetic component, but it is brash and unscientific to come to the conclusion that because people are associated genetically, that the social component is completely irrelevant. the social component would be much harder to study, so they ignore it. how can you study the environment of a child? because a single minute, seemingly unimportant, can influence someone's entire life? and it is impossible to observe at such a depth without changing the subject (as of course you know, observing and studying changes all subjects, from photons to plants, to animals to people). which brings me to the problem of your conclusions on revenge. if you have not made these conclusions, then i apologize, i have not read your original article, but even so, if you have not, other people i have read discussing your paper are coming to these conclusions. which is largely your responsibility. your conclusions as i see them (and in the least as others see them) is that love for revenge is natural. it is built into us. "Eye-for