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| | Understanding Me | | | Friday, June 20, 2008 (9:21 AM)
(I'm feeling Awesome TGIF) | | I just read this article and thought hey you know what? I bet this would explain to some members here on LV my expertise and natural god given ability that I possess that enables me to piss a mofo off before you can say WTF just happened here? I have many hammers
Meredith F. Small
LiveScience's Human Nature Columnist
LiveScience.com 1 hour, 40 minutes ago
Humans are fundamentally social animals. Our social nature means that we interact with each other in positive, friendly ways, and it also means we know how to manipulate others in a very negative way.
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Neurophysiologist Katherine Rankin at the University of California, San Francisco, has also recently discovered that sarcasm, which is both positively funny and negatively nasty, plays an important part in human social interaction.
So what?
I mean really, who cares? Oh for God's sake. Don't you have anything better to do that read this column?
According to Dr. Rankin, if you didn't get the sarcastic tone of the previous sentences you must have some damage to your parahippocampal gyrus which is located in the right brain. People with dementia, or head injuries in that area, often loose the ability to pick up on sarcasm, and so they don't respond in a socially appropriate ways.
Presumably, this is a pathology, which in turn suggests that sarcasm is part of human nature and probably an evolutionarily good thing.
How might something so, well, sarcastic as sarcasm, be part of the human social toolbox?
Evolutionary biologists claim that sociality is what has made humans such a successful species. We are masters at what anthropologists and others call "social intelligence." We recognize and keep track of hundreds of relationships, and we easily distinguish between enemies and friends.
More important, we run our lives by social calculation. A favor is mentally recorded and paid back, sometimes many years later. Likewise, insults are marked down on the mental score card in indelible ink. And we are constantly bickering and making up, even with people we love.
Sarcasm, then, is a verbal hammer that connects people in both a negative and positive way. We know that sense of humor is important to relationships; if someone doesn't get your jokes, they aren't likely to be your friend (or at least that's my bottom line about friendship). Sarcasm is simply humor's dark side, and it would be just as disconcerting if a friend didn't get your snide remarks.
It's also easy to imagine how sarcasm might be selected over time as evolutionarily crucial. Imagine two ancient humans running across the savannah with a hungry lion in pursuit. One guy says to the other, "Are we having fun yet?" and the other just looks blank and stops to figure out what in the world his pal meant by that remark. End of friendship, end of one guy's contribution to the future of the human gene pool.
Fast forward a few million years and the network of human relationships is wider and more complex, and just as important to survival. The corporate chairman throws out a sarcastic remark and those who "get" it laugh, smile, and gain favor. In the same way, if the chair never makes a remark, sarcastic people are making them behind his or her back, forming a clique by their mutually negative, but funny, comments. Either way, sarcasm plays a role in making and breaking alliances and friendship.
Thanks goodness, because life without out sarcasm would be a dull and way too nice place to be, if you ask me.
* Video: Humor and the Sexes
* Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind
* Emotional Wiring Different in Women and Men
Meredith F. Small is an anthropologist at Cornell University. She is also the author of "Our Babies, Ourselves; How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent" (link) and "The Culture of Our Discontent; Beyond the Medical Model of Mental Illness" (link).
* Original Story: Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill
Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Science, Animal and Dinosaur Pictures, Science Videos, Hot Topics, Trivia, Top 10s, Voting, Amazing Images, Reader Favorites, and more. Get cool gadgets at the new LiveScience Store, sign up for our free daily email newsletter and check out our RSS feeds today!
JW
So it would appear when referring to the above material that there are those people that do not recognize sarcasm at all or mistake it. Those would be the people that would call it hate and you a hater. So you see there's no need to even acknowledge their apparent lack of humor or social skills although I find it funny as hell;)
JW | | | 49 Views | 2  Thumbs Up | 1 Comment |  |
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| | The Quiet Before The Storm | | | Friday, June 20, 2008 (7:48 AM)
(I'm feeling Somewhat Amused) | | There's just nothing quite like it. I'll to that!
JW | | | | 39 Views | 4 Thumbs Up | 3 Comments | |
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| | JW A Few Words | | | Thursday, June 19, 2008 (1:48 PM)
(I'm feeling Fucking Awesome) | | Many people have been saying WTF? Why did I close my account? So, I thought I would take a few minutes and some what explain.
My sarcastic love for the LVA has never been a secret to anyone. They piss me off on a daily basis. They are useless and do nothing in favor of the community as a whole. They censor and are biased just to fuck with certain members for their personal enjoyment it would appear. I've been censored, videos deleted and such more times than I care to count. So, It finally happened to MethodofMac which is a very close friend and a fellow InnerCircle member and a pillar of the community. I drew the line...pissed beyond return. I do not care about how many subs,friends,vids,hits,favs and all that bullshit when it comes to standing up for something I believe in. So I did what I did. No excuse. No regrets. No appologies for my actions. Only to say that I am sorry to the loyal friends of mine that may have found this out after the fact.
Once again as usual it was said that I was leaving. I never said I was leaving. I said I was deleting my account in honor and support of Mac my brother. It's that simple. Make a point. Make a stand. Drink to something FFS! I also said you could find me on the tubes at jimwayne61 where I have always had an account but I did not mention leaving livevideo.
I hope that clears things up a bit for some. I support Mac 110% as I do the IC. One of two things will happen from here I suspect. 1) LV will do nothing to correct their snafu with Macs vids and Mac will invoke as he stated in which case both our channels will remain closed. 2) LVA actually gets off their lazy fucking asses and resolves the issue in which case Mac will stay as is and I at that time will create a new channel and return as the same old JW.
Until LVA pulls their finger out of their ass.... there you have it. Party on people Jihad on LVA = Win!
JW | | | | 87 Views | 22 Thumbs Up | 13 Comments | |
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