Cyprus-Forum.com

[boomerang]

To be honest i have read enough about Memetics to bore the shit out of me for the next decade, all i had to do was use the handy CTRL+F feature to figure out what a moron you really were

Keep it up

was that mehmetics or memetics very similar and probably mean the same...

beh pasha shah...never too young to learn...

[denizaksulu]

'Ruthlessness gene' discovered
Dictatorial behaviour may be partly genetic, study suggests.

Michael Hopkin


Could a gene be partly responsible for the behaviour of some of the worlds most infamous dictators?Selfish dictators may owe their behaviour partly to their genes, according to a study that claims to have found a genetic link to ruthlessness. The study might help to explain the money-grabbing tendencies of those with a Machiavellian streak — from national dictators down to 'little Hitlers' found in workplaces the world over.

Researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem found a link between a gene called AVPR1a and ruthless behaviour in an economic exercise called the 'Dictator Game'. The exercise allows players to behave selflessly, or like money-grabbing dictators such as former Zaire President Mobutu, who plundered the mineral wealth of his country to become one of the world's richest men while its citizens suffered in poverty.

The researchers don't know the mechanism by which the gene influences behaviour. It may mean that for some, the old adage that "it is better to give than to receive" simply isn't true, says team leader Richard Ebstein. The reward centres in those brains may derive less pleasure from altruistic acts, he suggests, perhaps causing them to behave more selfishly.

Prosocial hormone
Ebstein and his colleagues decided to look at AVPR1a because it is known to produce receptors in the brain that detect vasopressin, a hormone involved in altruism and 'prosocial' behaviour. Studies of prairie voles have previously shown that this hormone is important for binding together these rodents' tight-knit social groups.

Ebstein's team wondered whether differences in how this receptor is expressed in the human brain may make different people more or less likely to behave generously.

To find out, they tested DNA samples from more than 200 student volunteers, before asking the students to play the dictator game (volunteers were not told the name of the game, lest it influence their behaviour). Students were divided into two groups: 'dictators' and 'receivers' (called 'A' and 'B' to the participants). Each dictator was told that they would receive 50 shekels (worth about US$14), but were free to share as much or as little of this with a receiver, whom they would never have to meet. The receiver's fortunes thus depended entirely on the dictator's generosity.

About 18% of all dictators kept all of the money, Ebstein and his colleagues report in the journal Genes, Brain and Behavior 1. About one-third split the money down the middle, and a generous 6% gave the whole lot away.

Long and short
There was no connection between the participants' gender and their behaviour, the team reports. But there was a link to the length of the AVPR1a gene: people were more likely to behave selfishly the shorter their version of this gene.

It isn't clear how the length of AVPR1a affects vasopressin receptors: it is thought that rather than controlling the number of receptors, it may control where in the brain the receptors are distributed. Ebstein suggests the vasopressin receptors in the brains of people with short AVPR1a may be distributed in such a way to make them less likely to feel rewarded by the act of giving.

Though the mechanism is unclear, Ebstein says, he is fairly sure that selfish, greedy dictatorship has a genetic component. It would be easier to confirm this if history's infamous dictators conveniently had living identical twins, he says, so we could see if they were just as ruthless as each other.

Keen players
Researchers should nevertheless be careful about using the relatively blunt tool of the Dictator Game to draw conclusions about human generosity, says Nicholas Bardsley at the University of Southampton, UK, who studies such games.

His research suggests that players who routinely give money away as Dictators are also perfectly happy to steal money off other players in games that involve taking rather than giving. This suggests that the apparently more altruistic players in Ebstein's game may in fact be motivated by a desire simply to engage fully with the game, perhaps just because they feel that that is what's expected of them.

If that is true, then apparently ruthless dictators may be motivated not by out-and-out greed but by a simple lack of social skills, which leaves them unable to sense what's expected of them.

That certainly fits with the image of a naïve yet arrogant dictator with no sense of the inappropriateness of his actions and attitudes. Such figures have cropped up with surprising regularity throughout history, all the way from the emperors of Rome, through to Napoleon Bonaparte, Benito Mussolini, Saddam Hussein or Robert Mugabe, turkish generals now tenaciously clinging to power in the face of uncertain electoral results.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080404/full/news.2008.738.html

I guess oracle was right all along...

Boomerang, Hi there.
Oracle was not talking about Genes, was she? How can she be right?

Did you give the ref. to show your honesty and to inform us that you tampered with your evidence.(Turkish Generals). I admire your sense of humour)

[boomerang]

Hey Deniz....I can see your confusion...but...

A meme (pronounced /mim or mɛm/) consists of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Memes propagate themselves and can move through a "culture" in a manner similar to the behavior of a virus. As a unit of cultural evolution, a meme in some ways resembles a gene.

I hope the above shares some light...

The ref...made you read it...didn't it?

[Oracle]

It seems from the above exchanges that the Turks want to deny influence from either GENES or MEMES ....

.... indeed they are truly unique

[boomerang]

shouldn't you guys be tucked in bed by now?...

[denizaksulu]

shouldn't you guys be tucked in bed by now?...

I was checking up on Oracle to make sure she is safe. Dont want the 'voles' gnawing at her bones................yet.

[shahmaran]

To be honest i have read enough about Memetics to bore the shit out of me for the next decade, all i had to do was use the handy CTRL+F feature to figure out what a moron you really were

Keep it up

was that mehmetics or memetics very similar and probably mean the same...

beh pasha shah...never too young to learn...

You are quite funny for such an old man Boomers i give you that

[boomerang]

To be honest i have read enough about Memetics to bore the shit out of me for the next decade, all i had to do was use the handy CTRL+F feature to figure out what a moron you really were

Keep it up

was that mehmetics or memetics very similar and probably mean the same...

beh pasha shah...never too young to learn...

You are quite funny for such an old man Boomers i give you that

oh thank you shahmaran...but what does "such an old man" mean shah?

comedy and age ha?...must do some meme study...you never know there might be a gene link...

[zan]

Hey Boomers...No one will answer me when I ask....Isn't it funny how quite Tpap is at the moment........

Why you asking me zan?...Am I his keeper or something?...read the papers...or better still google him

Talk about fatal attraction

...time to get the posters down from the walls buddy...

So I take then that you have no comment on the memes thingie

I asked you if you thought he was strangely quite not to give me his appointments for the next 10000 years that I am sure he will be alive due to his deal with the devil...


AND I AM NOT ATTRACTED TO YOU>>>STOP SPREADING RUMOURS>>>>>

[repulsewarrior]

memes...

it took me a long time to form an opinion on this one.

let us consider this idea of genetic absorbtion if you will...

the environment and our adaptation to it is a strong case which Darwin defined.
i assume that social behaviour is as much exchanged as encoded in our genes.
you?

...so if 'We' look hard enough a murder meme might be found
but memes are not bad because our friend says that some are good
and memes should be counted, we should not think we can judge them
even a murder meme has its worth in the balance of things

i assume mathematics, like our social habits are encoded in our genes (now). whether engineered (like by saying and believing racism is wrong) or by natural selection the choice will evolve in a way well beyond our considerations. I assume that our genetics will embrace machines as it has embraced tools. and it may result in Humans becoming their photocopiers or their airplanes.

what is the fuss. is Dna the vision of a superior being, who created us? And thus, we are not the 'ones' at the tip of a pyramid, but the counterbalnce of everything else that is living, in this model, because of our reason, as yet unaware of the fulcum, its purpose, or where it lies.

OP, when it comes to memes, the concern is their displacement. all memes have a dialectic in their use, and all memes seek to grow. there is a natural tendancy to extend a knowledge, unlike other species, beyond the facility it has originally given us, and with all Laws their are some which are Universal. I suggest to you the Writings of Engels and Marx on the subject of memes, their work in political economics, is a wealth of knowledge as significant as Darwin, when it comes to behaviour, and in my opinion their work on gens has not received the credit it is due.