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Kingreaper comments on Blood Feud 2.0 - Less Wrong
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Comments (8)
You seem to be implying that the drive for vengeance is a socially constructed emotion, rather than an instinctual reaction.
Is that intentional?
Not particularly.
Regardless of the level at which a desire for vengeance operates, the point is to deter offense, and there have been social constructs to facilitate that purpose for all of recorded history, at least.
I'm just wondering why you structured your just-so story as though the hunter and friends had never felt the urge to vengeance, and therefore needed to invent the whole concept.
It's easier to imagine something being consciously designed and informally tested than having it emerge randomly and become canonized in instinct over generations.
Easier to imagine, but more wrong? Reciprocal altruism evolved in lots of situations among animals which don't have language or consciousness, eg "cleaner fish", so vengeance is not that great a leap. It's part of tit-for-tat, after all.
Can anyone cite a paper specifically reporting vengeance among animals? It seems like it ought to be a necessary component of reciprocal altruism.