What is problematic about gossip as a feedback mechanism is that there is no backstop as far as keeping things factual. Gossip can simply be a lot of completely false and targeted information, driven not by concern for the greater good but by one or two canny people's interests, as anyone familiar with the corporate variety can attest.
Building on this, there's also less anonymity with gossip in my experience. If I trace back a malicious rumor to /u/PeanutCurry on reddit, that's essentially where the trail ends most likely. I have no idea who they are or why they are saying false things about me. Workplace gossip on the other hand can be traced. I'll definitely admit that it can't reliably be traced in the sense that anyone can do it. But if you have friends in the office and participate in the social space then you will probably have an idea of who to pressure for information. And if you have the social capability you've got a good chance of extracting that information.
>Their research showed that gossip and ostracism can have very positive effects. They are tools by which groups reform bullies, thwart exploitation of "nice people" and encourage cooperation.
"Reform." Sure. Look, gossiping behind peoples' back doesn't work as a feedback mechanism for everyone. If you can't read the cues, your only option is to be ruthlessly conservative around others:
1. Never trust anybody.
2. Never introduce yourself into a social situation that you haven't been specifically invited to join.
3. Always try to remember what the people around you believe or feel strongly about, and be careful never to mention those things.
4. Always be pleasant and agreeable, never directly contradict people. Never speak your mind, and never be fully honest and open.
I mean, I guess that's a positive outcome from society's point of view. There's no trouble, no friction, no inadvertent impositions on others. That's good. But I dunno, it doesn't feel very positive. I like people, and I feel like most of my views are pretty agreeable, but ... well, I don't know. Nobody ever tells me these things.
Edit: What? I can't really pick up on these things, and this is what I slowly and painfully learned from gossip growing up. It's been very isolating, and hard to unlearn as an adult. What problem do people have with this point? Is my experience invalid?
We evolved from a ape-like mamals- and it has always been beneficial to have one member in the group ready to eat for tigers, lions and bears.
That is what drove social evolution, that if the group could agree on you as the next in line, sleeping deeper in the tree, on the thick branches, that dont give you a warning if the cat gets to you- tag your it.
Socializing today, from the first bullying (nuke-tests) in school to the advanced stages of mobbing at work- is still not far from this intial cold-war that tought us how to speak about who should be the next one to be fed.
Its horrific, its ugly and as it goes with truths, that makes it more likely.
But today, we can not only avoid this, we can even detect situations that trigger such behaviour excesses (age and ability uniform groups, external performance stress) and can avoid this, by declaring a external (virtual) group member as the next to be fed. "Your department is under a lot of stress .. but at least you do not mess it up like this other department, who are about to see the axe, because they cant team up."
TL,DR; Know you nature well, do not go into denial, hack it within the limits of the whats possible, nature is not a destiny.
Suicide is the result of bullying, workplace mobbing, community harassment, being hacked and fucked with over and over again for decades. The tigers and wolves in this case are replaced by the act of suicide -- this is the goal now whether people are conscious of it, or not.
Humans are primitive creatures in possession of a global stalking/harassment network that leaks over into "Real Life".
But people socialize in ways that are very different from apes. Humans are so deeply social by nature that we make other monkies look psychopathic by comparison. Show me an ape that performs charity to save other species. People clearly have a much deeper capacity for altruism, and form much much larger better integrated colonies than apes. We don't necessarily need to pick losers, humans are naturally willing to make sacrifices for the group even at the expense of their own individual reproduction.
Groups of people are more like insects than apes. Millions of apes could never coexist together the way human cities or ant colonies do.
Sure: discredits other (an thus increases your status), people like complaining (increase your like-ability), feeds people interest (people return for more) -> better relationships. More chance to live.
Personally I am applaud by such behaviour. Even telling second hand is a no-go unless you know the source would be willing to tell the other person.
I think you're ignoring the fact that the person who is doing the gossiping can also be the subject of gossip. If you gain a reputation for spreading untrue negative assessments about others, then you could end up being the subject of ostracism as that behavior also can lead to results that are harmful for the group.
Which, of course, can lead to even more complex "gaming" of the system, but only to the point where the amount of effort you put in outweighs the minimum acceptable level of effort you could otherwise put into the work itself.
This reminds me of a post about reinforcement learning agents, I think from OpenAI. They found that to get the agents to coordinate as a group, they had to judge and criticize other agents' actions in addition to their own.
