7 ms·

If an instinct or circuitry around revenge can exist in monkeys, I wonder if humans can ever fully escape that tendency, or if it is just built into who we are.

HamburgerEmoji 5y ago
We can train ourselves. The methods are very old, but hardly anyone knows about them, much less actually does them every day. They are things like the Brahmaviharas.
true_religion 5y ago
When humans cull all the wolves in an area because they killed a child, we don’t call it revenge. We call it animal control.
- 323 5y ago
  The purpose of revenge is to cause pain. Animal control tries to do just that, control. If a written sign would be enough, those wolves would not have been culled (except maybe the ones which actually killed tje child).
- pvaldes 5y ago
  > When humans cull all the wolves in an area because they killed a child Wolves normally don't do that. Not unless they have rabies. We should stop seeing the nature as if we were still in the XVII century. The logical answer would be to direct the revenge against the real culprit, the rabies virus. Kill the rabid wolf and vaccinate other local wolves against rabies. Wolves learn quickly that must keep their distance with humans. Culling all the wolves in the area leads to more humans killed, by herbivores.
doovd 5y ago
Why is it something humans must "escape"?
- newsbinator 5y ago
  Revenge is counter-productive most of the time. It's only really useful when you want to galvanize a population into suicide. Otherwise you get into a cycle of revenge for revenge for revenge that wastes everybody's energy.
  - fidesomnes 5y ago
    [dead]
PeterisP 5y ago
"Circuitry around revenge" is probably a beneficial social "skill" for facilitating group cooperation, there's all kinds of game theory (e.g. basic things like iterated prisoners dilemma tit-for-tat strategy) that suggests that knowing about the presence of revenge acts and a likelihood of punishing defection (even at extra 'expense' for the punisher) deters defection, and allows to reach a better shared result. I.e. if we simply could abandon that at the flip of a switch, I'm not sure if we should, it's plausible that it would make all kinds of abuse less risky and thus more attractive, increasing the abuse happening in the world.
Comevius 5y ago
Macaques are very intelligent animals, more importantly they are successful because of their Machiavellian tendencies, just like we are. Unfortunately while this behavior is useful at conquering the world, it becomes counterproductive later on.
tantalor 5y ago
HG Wells speculates about this in The Time Machine. The futuristic humans lost their revenge instinct and are helpless against their subterranean tormenters.
- cdrini 5y ago
  I don't remember the loss of the "revenge instinct" being a part of that book. The future humans had optimized for comfort/happiness so much that they evolved to be more and more docile and childlike. They lost their intelligence and evolved into stupid beasts again because they had no evolutionary pressure to become anything else. They didn't lose their self-preservatory instinct -- they just lost the only defensive tool humans have evolved that lets us compete/win against all other animals: our intelligence. Kind of like those birds in a New Zealand island that evolved to be too fat to fly, because the island had no predators. And then cats got accidentally introduced to the island.
  - potatochup 5y ago
    New Zealand has/had plenty of predators, they were just all avian [0], [1], which hunt by sight, and during the day [2]. Existing/nesting on the ground with good visual camouflage is a adaptation to avoid avian predators. Obviously it doesn't work that well against mammalian predators. - [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_falcon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_falcon - [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast%27s_eagle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast%27s_eagle - [2] exception here being the Ruru (an Owl)
cdrini 5y ago
Of course we can; the point of having such huge brains is that we can override our animal instincts if we want to. Same reason you can convince yourself to jump off a cliff into water even if you're scared of heights. Or how you can convince yourself to skip meals to get your work done. Or to not physically fight someone when you're in a disagreement. Or to not cheat when in a relationship. Not being slaves to our animals instincts is kind of what makes humans human.

HamburgerEmoji 5y ago

We can train ourselves. The methods are very old, but hardly anyone knows about them, much less actually does them every day. They are things like the Brahmaviharas.

true_religion 5y ago

When humans cull all the wolves in an area because they killed a child, we don’t call it revenge. We call it animal control.

323 5y ago
The purpose of revenge is to cause pain. Animal control tries to do just that, control. If a written sign would be enough, those wolves would not have been culled (except maybe the ones which actually killed tje child).
pvaldes 5y ago
> When humans cull all the wolves in an area because they killed a child Wolves normally don't do that. Not unless they have rabies. We should stop seeing the nature as if we were still in the XVII century. The logical answer would be to direct the revenge against the real culprit, the rabies virus. Kill the rabid wolf and vaccinate other local wolves against rabies. Wolves learn quickly that must keep their distance with humans. Culling all the wolves in the area leads to more humans killed, by herbivores.

doovd 5y ago

Why is it something humans must "escape"?

newsbinator 5y ago
Revenge is counter-productive most of the time. It's only really useful when you want to galvanize a population into suicide. Otherwise you get into a cycle of revenge for revenge for revenge that wastes everybody's energy.
- fidesomnes 5y ago
  [dead]

PeterisP 5y ago

"Circuitry around revenge" is probably a beneficial social "skill" for facilitating group cooperation, there's all kinds of game theory (e.g. basic things like iterated prisoners dilemma tit-for-tat strategy) that suggests that knowing about the presence of revenge acts and a likelihood of punishing defection (even at extra 'expense' for the punisher) deters defection, and allows to reach a better shared result. I.e. if we simply could abandon that at the flip of a switch, I'm not sure if we should, it's plausible that it would make all kinds of abuse less risky and thus more attractive, increasing the abuse happening in the world.

Comevius 5y ago

Macaques are very intelligent animals, more importantly they are successful because of their Machiavellian tendencies, just like we are. Unfortunately while this behavior is useful at conquering the world, it becomes counterproductive later on.

tantalor 5y ago

HG Wells speculates about this in The Time Machine. The futuristic humans lost their revenge instinct and are helpless against their subterranean tormenters.

cdrini 5y ago
I don't remember the loss of the "revenge instinct" being a part of that book. The future humans had optimized for comfort/happiness so much that they evolved to be more and more docile and childlike. They lost their intelligence and evolved into stupid beasts again because they had no evolutionary pressure to become anything else. They didn't lose their self-preservatory instinct -- they just lost the only defensive tool humans have evolved that lets us compete/win against all other animals: our intelligence. Kind of like those birds in a New Zealand island that evolved to be too fat to fly, because the island had no predators. And then cats got accidentally introduced to the island.
- potatochup 5y ago
  New Zealand has/had plenty of predators, they were just all avian [0], [1], which hunt by sight, and during the day [2]. Existing/nesting on the ground with good visual camouflage is a adaptation to avoid avian predators. Obviously it doesn't work that well against mammalian predators. - [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_falcon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_falcon - [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast%27s_eagle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast%27s_eagle - [2] exception here being the Ruru (an Owl)

cdrini 5y ago

Of course we can; the point of having such huge brains is that we can override our animal instincts if we want to. Same reason you can convince yourself to jump off a cliff into water even if you're scared of heights. Or how you can convince yourself to skip meals to get your work done. Or to not physically fight someone when you're in a disagreement. Or to not cheat when in a relationship. Not being slaves to our animals instincts is kind of what makes humans human.