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The World’s Deadliest Addiction Is Popping Up on Brain Scans. And It’s Not Even a Drug
Slate ^ | July 14, 2025 | James Kimmel Jr.

Posted on 10/14/2025 2:14:14 PM PDT by Pontiac

Revenge is an act designed to inflict harm on someone because they’ve inflicted harm on us. We could yearn for anything after we’ve been mistreated, like a scoop of ice cream, a nap, or a relaxing massage. But what most of us really want is the other person’s pain—and for them to know that their pain is because of the pain they’ve caused us.

The desire for revenge is the root motivation for almost all forms of human violence. From childhood bullying to intimate partner violence, urban violence, police brutality, mass shootings, violent extremism, genocide, and even war, perpetrators of violence almost always believe they’re victims seeking justice.

Recent neuroscience discoveries reveal a chilling picture: Your brain on revenge looks like your brain on drugs. Brain imaging studies show that grievances—real or imagined perceptions of injustice, disrespect, betrayal, shame, or victimization—activate the “pain network,” specifically the anterior insula. The brain doesn’t like pain and tries to rebalance itself with pleasure. Pleasure can come from many things, but humans have evolved to feel intense pleasure from hurting the people who hurt us, or their proxies.

In more modern times, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao achieved a combined death toll of some 102 million people by waging a world war that included murdering—or ordering or encouraging the murder, torture, or starvation of—approximately 38.5 million people who they believed wronged them for things like betraying their nation (Jews in Germany), refusing to give up their land and possessions (peasants and landlords in communist Russia and China), and disrespecting or opposing them. By my estimate, of the top 20 human atrocities of all time, identified by researcher Matthew White in his book Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in Human History, 19 were the result of compulsive revenge-seeking. They left an estimated 336 million people dead.

(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Science
KEYWORDS: addiction; astroturf; brain; demagogicparty; demagogue; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; jameskimmeljr; mediawingofthednc; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills; revenge; slate

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The author of this article takes a lot of liberties with history.

But it is interesting research

1 posted on 10/14/2025 2:14:14 PM PDT by Pontiac
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To: Pontiac

Leftists…their TDS has destroyed their brains!


2 posted on 10/14/2025 2:19:06 PM PDT by mikelets456
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To: mikelets456

The Heavy Metal Version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mHST4Q4kTU&list=RD9mHST4Q4kTU&start_radio=1


3 posted on 10/14/2025 2:20:28 PM PDT by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: Pontiac
We could yearn for anything after we’ve been mistreated, like a scoop of ice cream

Sydney Sweeney is okay with that.


4 posted on 10/14/2025 2:23:34 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye." (John 2:5))
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To: Pontiac

5 posted on 10/14/2025 2:24:27 PM PDT by Bratch
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To: Pontiac

No mention of the hundreds of millions slain by muslims since 620AD.


6 posted on 10/14/2025 2:28:51 PM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: Pontiac

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z39KZAryzk


7 posted on 10/14/2025 2:31:20 PM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: Pontiac

Considering that the author says things that I know are not true about things I know about, I will assume that he is also saying things that are not true about things I do not know about.


8 posted on 10/14/2025 2:33:05 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (It's like somebody just put the Constitution up on a wall …. and shot the First Amendment -Mike Rowe)
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To: mikelets456
By understanding the desire for revenge as the result of an addictive brain-biological process, and that revenge is the primary motive for almost all forms of violence, we can, for the first time in human history, develop evidence-based public health approaches to prevent and treat violence.

On the prevention side, this might include things like school programs and public health campaigns to warn about the addictive dangers and risks of revenge use.

On the treatment side, interventions could include revenge addiction counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy, peer support, self-help strategies, and, one day, maybe even medications like the naltrexone and GLP-1 drugs (such as Ozempic) that have been shown to control compulsive cravings for food.

The imagined wrongs that living White People have inflicted on Black People seem to be causing Revenge Addiction in the Urban Black people.

This desire for Revenge is politically driven propaganda by Communist seeking to bring down the United States by creating chaos.

9 posted on 10/14/2025 2:33:19 PM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
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To: Pontiac

This desire for Revenge is politically driven propaganda by Communist seeking to bring down the United States by creating chaos.


And as Nietzsche said, ‘Out of chaos, comes order.’


10 posted on 10/14/2025 2:34:24 PM PDT by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: PIF

Muslin religiously motivated atrocities are irrelevant to his research.


11 posted on 10/14/2025 2:37:54 PM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

So much of scientific research today is fabricated.

You may be right.


12 posted on 10/14/2025 2:40:13 PM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
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To: Dr. Sivana

RE: Sydney Sweeney is okay with that.

We men are so nice.

We would never deny women the chance to get their licks. 🍦 🍭


13 posted on 10/14/2025 2:41:43 PM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )
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To: mikelets456

Imaging of the TDS brains could be very interesting! Seriously.


14 posted on 10/14/2025 2:44:29 PM PDT by MayflowerMadam (It's hard not to celebrate the fall of bad people. - Bongino)
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To: PGalt

Kind of surprising that there was a brief flash of Clinton in their video montage.

Everyone else was a conservative or dictator.


15 posted on 10/14/2025 2:44:50 PM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
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To: Pontiac

I usually check the writer. I thought, “Jimmy Kimmel. Now what’s he up to?”


16 posted on 10/14/2025 2:49:49 PM PDT by gloryblaze
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To: Pontiac

I doubt the young gang bangers are out for revenge. Out for sport is closer to the truth.


17 posted on 10/14/2025 2:51:25 PM PDT by gloryblaze
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To: Pontiac

I have no idea if the study they did in this case is right, wrong or even was reported on correctly by the author. I just know that I can not trust the author so I can not trust anything in the article.


18 posted on 10/14/2025 2:52:36 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (It's like somebody just put the Constitution up on a wall …. and shot the First Amendment -Mike Rowe)
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To: dfwgator

The Heavy Metal Version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mHST4Q4kTU&list=RD9mHST4Q4kTU&start_radio=1

That is OUTSTANDING! 2 minutes was just about right. Very well done.


19 posted on 10/14/2025 2:56:45 PM PDT by dayglored (This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118:24)
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To: dfwgator
‘Out of chaos, comes order.’

Communist are good at order.

I order you to be quite.

I order you to kill him

I order you to take his farm, his food, and his children.

Communist are good and ordering misery.

20 posted on 10/14/2025 3:01:48 PM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
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