"Altruistic Revenge"

Instead of working, I'm screwing around on the internet.

My back hurts. I just raided our first-aid cabinet for PainCrushers. I don't even know what they are, asprin or something, but the fact that they're called PainCrushers compells me to take them. Seriously, that's a good brand image: PainCrushers. Who wouldn't want that.

I've been thinking a lot about brand and corporate image and how they relate to being an urban night hunter. You gotta have a good brand if you're a superhero, or else you never get any play. No media coverage, no high profile busts, no team-ups, and let's face it - no action. I've been thinking about changing my brand. You know, upgrading. Maybe just "Marauder."

Anyway, I found an interesting article on Forbes.com about 'altruistic revenge' and how humans are neurologically hardwired for vengeance.

From the article:


'A Swiss brain imaging study shows that punishing people when they behave unfairly activates the same reward circuitry of the brain that is fired up when sniffing cocaine or seeing a beautiful face.

The findings, which appear in the Aug. 27 issue of Science, may partly explain the phenomenon of "altruistic punishment," which is exacting revenge on behalf of a stranger.

"A lot of theoretical work in evolutionary biology and our previous experimental work suggest that altruistic punishment has been crucial for the evolution of cooperation in humansocieties," said Ernst Fehr, the senior author of the study who is director of the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics at the University of Zurich. "Our previous experiments show that if altruistic punishment is possible, cooperation flourishes. If we rule out altruistic punishment, cooperation breaks down."