Trial by Fury: Internet Savagery and the Amanda Knox Case

by Douglas Preston

Whenever we see outrage in the face of mere questions, it is good to wonder where the truth lies.”

The reason is group evolution. A group that cooperates, in which some individuals act for the benefit of the group, will prevail over a group of totally selfish people.

Without punishment, cooperation in human society would not have evolved.

In other words, one of our most treasured of human qualities — cooperation — evolved only because of the existence of punishment.

Other experiments showed that when people punish, the dorsal striatum, a reward part of the brain, lit up. Those subjects who sacrificed the most to punish got the biggest charge from it.

Bowles mathematical simulations showed that an optimal society has a significant percentage of punishers.

“There’s quite a bit of evidence,” he said, “that people really enjoy admonishing, inflicting harm on and punishing other people who are brea...

Cooperation and altruism evolve even more strongly. “Groups with lots of altruists,” said Bowles, “win wars.” The losers die; they don’t pass on their genes.

Warfare in human history was essential for the evolution of cooperation and altruism.

In our culture, for example, wrongs are investigated and evaluated by neutral parties (the “police”). A public airing of information (“evidence”) is presented in an open, formalized manner with many people participating. The accused by law must be party to the discussions (the “trial”). The accuser must meet the accused face to face. All evidence, pro and con, must be considered. Every stage of the process is open and scrutinized. The state (not the victim’s family) is charged with punishing, so there will be no feuds or vendettas. This process is one of the most precious assets of our society. It took Western civilization many bloody centuries to develop it.

Now we have the Internet. It functions, in part, as a non-state form of social control. But it is one where our punishing instincts go haywire.

Community is a fundamental part of this process. The Internet simulates the small communities in which human beings thrive.

But these Internet communities are devoid of the softening effects of real human interactions, in which discussions of wrongdoing occur face to face, where diverse opinions are expressed, and where people are held accountable for what they say.