Nasty nasty

Via improbable research:

The pleasure of being nasty but only if they don't whack you back:

“In the joy-of-destruction game that we introduce, players can burn each other’s money, but we have removed all conventional reasons to do so. No material gain is achieved, no wrongdoing is punished, no inequality is reduced. Nevertheless, we observe a substantial incidence of nasty behavior in our hidden treatment, where spiteful actions could be covered by random destruction. When destruction is open, it rapidly goes away, but the treatment difference shows that this decline is due to fear of retaliation, not due to kindness.”

IR also has a post on the fig:

“Ecco il fico” — Barbarossa, the fig, the bite, the thumb, and the mule 

The phrase “Ecco il fico” has a particularly ripe meaning, writes Rob Chirico in the Strong Language blog:


making a fig is the medieval equivalent of giving the finger....