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I wonder how this works/worked from an evolutionary perspective. Are vengeful people effective enforcers of tribal norms and customs? It would be a good deterre

I wonder how this works/worked from an evolutionary perspective. Are vengeful people effective enforcers of tribal norms and customs? It would be a good deterrent to not cross someone if you knew they would destroy themselves to destroy you. Still, one doesn't have to look far to find talking heads who will happily tell you that some group of people has slighted you and that you need to respond (by voting for [X]). So even if vengefulness is helpful, and even if forgiveness is the answer for unhelpful vengefulness, is there any way to keep it from being hijacked at scale? Is it religion?

BizarroLand 1y ago
I think it's mindfulness. You can find this in religion, or generic spirituality, or meditation, or any number of activities. Putting in the effort to be aware of yourself in the moment, in your mental context, and in the context of the group you find yourself in, your place in society and in the world, and where you are now and where you want to be before you shuffle off the mortal coil, all of these things are important and matter. Of course, if you can fully grasp onto all of this at once then you're a better person than I, but it's still a task worth attempting since it can let you meta analyze your life and your feelings and increase the chance that your decisions are made intentionally, which is nice because you have to live with them no matter what.
jfengel 1y ago
Be wary of attempts to explain behavior via evolution. Not every trait is adaptive, so the right question is often not "What good does this do?" but "How did people survive despite this?" Before attempting to apply such explanations, you'd need to have an extremely broad cultural perspective. Practically everybody you know is WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). You can't really draw a pattern without including a lot of other cultures, both existing and extinct.
- yesfitz 1y ago
  How did people survive despite their predilection for revenge?
  - throwaway81523 1y ago
    Ideally by refraining from doing stuff makes other people vengeful toward them. I thought I saved a link about that but can't find it now.
  - cindyllm 1y ago
    [dead]

BizarroLand 1y ago

I think it's mindfulness. You can find this in religion, or generic spirituality, or meditation, or any number of activities. Putting in the effort to be aware of yourself in the moment, in your mental context, and in the context of the group you find yourself in, your place in society and in the world, and where you are now and where you want to be before you shuffle off the mortal coil, all of these things are important and matter. Of course, if you can fully grasp onto all of this at once then you're a better person than I, but it's still a task worth attempting since it can let you meta analyze your life and your feelings and increase the chance that your decisions are made intentionally, which is nice because you have to live with them no matter what.

jfengel 1y ago

Be wary of attempts to explain behavior via evolution. Not every trait is adaptive, so the right question is often not "What good does this do?" but "How did people survive despite this?" Before attempting to apply such explanations, you'd need to have an extremely broad cultural perspective. Practically everybody you know is WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). You can't really draw a pattern without including a lot of other cultures, both existing and extinct.

yesfitz 1y ago
How did people survive despite their predilection for revenge?
- throwaway81523 1y ago
  Ideally by refraining from doing stuff makes other people vengeful toward them. I thought I saved a link about that but can't find it now.
- cindyllm 1y ago
  [dead]