KU7ZWA("The" Jealousy (romantic selfishness) Gene in "everyone")

Revision 742 -2009.12.15pst1823 (~90% complete):

"The" Jealousy (romantic selfishness) Gene in "everyone" (nearly every human plus many other bi-sexed creatures): anti-love, viral, & main cause of the-war-of-the-sexes.

1. .^KU9E7L: Background for those curious
1. ^KU6MFF:  This verses other work I'm aware.  This is my original sociobiology theory from about 2002.  It is an  extension to sociobiology which I solely came up with (my original work) around 2002.  I have verbally told to adults dozens of times, and written it, but until here it's never been published.  From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jealousy#In_psychology I see that evolutionary psychology has predicted from 2004 and apparently before that jealousy is genetic and that males will be jealous of sexuality of their mate and females will be jealous of emotional of their mate, but (on quick glance) that's as much as I've found so far. .  My ideas I write here and in the container documents on this site I go well beyond that: I use sociobiology (genetics) and some culture to explain whole networks & priorities of behavior and plus solutions then on how to deal with it.
   
2. ^KU9FNY:  Some contest these theories.  For instance, in his 2004 book, Jessie J. Prinz concludes on the matter "The evidence for innateness of jealousy is weak at best."  Well I highly suspect jealousy is genetic, and for over 2 million years.  My intuition says it is.  And while, yes, we may have limited scientific evidence, as you will read here the logic is very compelling.
   
2. ^KU6U3E:  I postulate and attempt to show here that the majority of jealousy (romantic selfishness) that we and other creatures experience is fundamentally genetic, coming from some "jealousy" gene or genes ("jealousy" is the best name for it I have so far), and that:
   
1. ^KU599K:  jealousy (romantic selfishness) is a very dominant and indeed viral genetic trait as it:
   
1. ^KUBQ8X:  gives an individual an "unfair" and marked advantage over spreading his or her genes so spreads viraly like wildfire and
2. ^KUBPYE:  nearly wipes out non-jealousy for the "infected" sex
   
2. ^KUBPV4:  but unlike "Survival of the fittest" (an oversimplification), the offspring are NOT more fit just more romantically selfish like their jealous parent (anti-love), so much more fighting over mates occurs and the community is seemingly damaged.
1. ^KUBQ1Y:  How is this possible to operate against "Survival of the fittest"?  As mentioned, that's an oversimplification: it's not "fit" it's gene pool dominance. 
   
3. ^KUBQ2D:  I presume that before the jealousy gene appeared (in that sex that) that the individuals (of that sex) were non-jealous (not romantically selfish), which seems reasonable as:
1. ^KUBQDU:  the bonobo chimpanzee are a species without jealousy (so non-jealous creatures are certainly possible) and
   
2. ^KUBQ3V: obviously jealousy would not be required for reproduction so could be-added (evolve) later and
3. ^KUBQDH:  indeed it takes more work & thinking to be jealous (to try to control your mate) so it would seem likely it did evolve later.
4. ^KUBQTL:  Then the jealousy trait appears (in that sex) thru mutation, manifesting itself somewhat differently in each sex and with somewhat different results depending on the sex, but still highly contagious to both, as without anti-jealousy behavior as bonobos have, the jealousy trait apparently would become viral & dominant easily (male) or semi-easily (female) as follows:
3. ^KUBQPZ:
   
4. 
   

KU59DU:  In males the jealousy trait significantly helps insure all the offspring he raises are his, so gives his individual genes a competitive advantage over that of other males.  This may severely abuse the mother (as lock her in the cave and don't even let her talk to women friends), but as long as the kids of his genes survive, that's all that matters. KU6W38:  And unlike the mis-belief "Survival of the fittest", his kids are not more fit at all, just more romantically selfish like dad! KU6W3M:  And sadly it seems easy to start the male jealousy "infection": KU59P2:  Suppose non-jealousy within males is the norm.  KU5AOA:  Then through mutation there appears a jealous male, defined: he won't let his mates get romantic with any other mates besides him, especially if male. KU5A36:  But the other males, as his neighbor, are non-jealous, so, unknowing, they share their mate with the jealous male so he has sex with her. KU5A2U:  However the jealous male won't share his female and only allows her to have sex with him (per the definition of jealousy): as "locks her in the cave, won't even let her talk with other females, beats her if she tries to get out"; but even if she's miserable & even eventually dies from the abuse, all that it's important is that the offspring survive.   KU6UNU:  Naturally this upsets if not abuses her but being physically weaker than him he could get away with it. KU6UPC:  And it will probably upset the other males and females who notice but the other females are weaker, too, and as long as the other males have other females to have sex with (and with non-jealousy they would have many) the males probably won't care. KU5A4T:  And so for one reason or another, they allow this jealous male to have sex with the other females and while allowing him to monopolize as little as just one female:  Big mistake!  As look what happens: KU5A93:  The jealous male's mate is miserable but indeed has 6 kids before she dies of childbirth, and they are all from the jealous males genes. KU5ABQ:  And the non jealous male's mate also has 6 kids before she dies of childbirth.  And 3 of them are from the non-jealous male, but 3 of them are from jealous male! KU5AEU:  So the jealous male ends up having 9 kids of his genes (so, especially if male, likely end up jealous as he is); whereas the non-jealous male only has 3 kids of his genes (and all of them don't have jealousy as their parents didn't have it).   Well that's a 9 to 3 ratio (3x), which then, in the next generation, becomes an 81 to 9 ratio (9^2  to 3^2, aka 9x) and very quickly non-jealousy in the males is almost entirely wiped out as jealousy within males spreads as viral dominate genetic trait. KU9HWP:  Further making male jealousy prevalent for humans are two additional human traits: KU9IAW:  human males are typically unable to tell if the offspring are theirs (unlike say lions & sparrows which can apparently tell by smell and kill the offspring which aren't theirs), so all they can depend on is male jealousy to guard that the spouse mate doesn't get impregnated by others. KU9ICY:  And failing here (raising a child which is not his) is a huge step backwards for the human male.  Because the human child typically takes at least 15 years + pregnancy to raise successfully, which as well as being longer than most prison sentences, is pretty much the entire adult male's life, for for 99.99% of human existence, humans are supposed to have lived to only about 30, just old enough to raise your kid to adulthood (15) before you kick the bucket yourself. KU9J03:  And apparently these two human two traits are so strong that male jealousy has been embedded into most human culture & religion: that women be "virtuous", even wear a chastity belt(left pic) in some rare cases, so to insure she only ever sex with her husband. KU5D1W:  So a tragic consequence of this enormous male jealousy it drives/evolves and literally & consciously breeds women to be "virtuous" as to only one sex partner for life, especially only one visible sex partner, because her male mates will fight if they find out about each other and could hurt or kill themselves and/or her and/or abandon her, else then-on label her "for sex only", as covered at http://#KU3IW8. KU9Y3Y:  Male "Jealousy" by Edvard Munch (It's hard to find pictures of male jealousy; my guess is males find it too embarrassing to want it pictured. So rather there seems to be several times more photos poking fun at female jealousy. But, considering  the men-dominated last 3000 years heavily re-bred women to accommodate their male jealousy, to me this lack of pictures only shows how shameful male jealousy really is.)

KU5AL8: In females, the jealousy trait locks down a male to herself helping her insure she will have his resources for her kids (and herself) and some other females won't nor will get his sperm, so gives her individual gene reproduction a competitive advantage over that of other males. KU6W3V:  However most mammals (including humans) are social creatures in communities (as the community can collectively work more efficiently than the individual) so could raise her children fine without locking the male down (as is done by bonobos which don't seem to have jealousy), so her locking the male down is unnecessary.  So unlike the misbelief "Survival of the fittest", his kids are not more fit at all, just more romantically selfish like mom! KU6W49:  And sadly it's semi-easy to start the female jealousy "infection": KU5ANW:  Suppose non-jealousy within females is the norm. KU5ARA:  Then suppose through mutation there appears a jealous female, defined: she tries to stop him from getting romantic with any other females and definitely insists all his home-building & kid raising (which she might call "his heart") be for her & her kids. KU5AS4:  The jealous female succeeds to lock down a male all to herself. KU5AUB:  This takes the male away from one or more non-jealous females where he was helping raise those kids, too. KU5B0C:  The non-jealous females will probably fight her eventually, but possibly too late as they would never suspect another female to do this as they've never seen jealousy before. KU5B2N:  The stolen male will also fight this since he's invested in his other kids with that other female, but since he's already a weak male (by allowing a female to lock him down) and/or since he's used to having sex with several females and letting many of them be "sex only" (hoping someone else will raise the kids), he lets the other female go abandoned. KU5B8M:  Result is the jealous female has 6 kids before she dies of child birth. KU5B9P:  And the non-jealous female who was abandoned does from being abandoned, and so do her kids, say for except 2 kids who were old enough to survive on their own. KU5BEX:  Thus in the end the jealous female has 6 kids of her genes (so especially if female, are likely to end up jealous as she is); whereas the non-jealous female ends up only having had 2 surviving kids.  Well that's a 6 to 2 ratio (3x), which then, in the next generation, becomes a 36 to 4 ratio (6^2 to 2^2, aka 9x) and very quickly non-jealousy in the females is almost entirely wiped out as jealousy within females spreads as viral dominate genetic trait. KU7LGB:  Males still would be driven to want romantic variety of course but now the males who would reveal that would readily be refused by the females (and still are today): "So your having (or even just thinking about) another sex partner?!  Okay I'm leaving, and telling, so now you get NO sex partners!"  Women today will even try to trick him into confessing (lying "Oh, no, go ahead, it's no problem...").  This is hard on a male, and it's possible the genes of the honest & sharing male would die out, leaving only secretive males.  But whether males come by this genetically or by painful lessons the first they flirt with a woman (it's probably a combination of both), it is certain that all males (above 18) know "There are certain things (such as your sexual variety interests) which you NEVER tell a woman." KU9Y4O:  female jealousy by DemandStudios.com



5. ^KU5BU4:  Zero-jealousy (having no jealousy) seemingly would be & is never wiped out, just floating around at minimal levels as a rare recessive trait (as possibly as small as 1 in 6000).
1. ^KU5C2S:  I've met several people who seem to have the (now) recessive trait of being non-jealous.  
1. ^KU9GLI:  From attending polyamory groups since 2000 (9 years) it seems about 50% of polyamorists simply seem to be  "born never being jealous" (and say things as "When I got into high school it got weird.  Because I would feel and say `of course I want my boyfriend to sleep with other women if he wants.  I want him to be happy.' and the other girls would look at me crazy.  They say I should be hugely angry but I just don't feel that way and never have  - I have no idea what everyone is so upset about.").
2. ^KU9GQT:  This gives some idea of how many such people born non jealousy are out there;Los Angeles' leading polyamorist group, http://Meetup.com/Active-Polyamory has about 300 members; say the real polyamory population is 10x that but just doesn't know or admit it.  That's 3000 compared to LA County's population of 10 million.  So at least 1 in 6000 people is born non-jealous - that's not much!  But it does happen.  And I am not one of them: I experience romantic jealousy just as much as anyone, so had to come to polyamory though hard thinking.
2. ^KU5BYA:  I can't think of an easy way to prove this but it might be shown by computer simulation.
3. ^KU5C0R:  It may also have to do with the fact that jealousy has a lot of negative problems which humans are smart enough to see and sometimes also don't tolerate jealousy plus often consider other factors in choosing mates; plus (unlike some other creatures) males don't usually kill the offspring they don't think are theirs ( perhaps because, unlike some other creatures, they often can't tell).  So my bet is non-jealousy trait manages to stay alive, but just barely.
6. ^KU9EB7:  In addition, "evolutionary psychology predicts that men will be more jealousy of sexual infidelity, and women will be more jealousy of emotional infidelity." and spend lots of time debating if this difference is genetic or cultural.
1. ^KU9EE3:  This is interesting and likely true but I think a minor point. Why?
1. ^KU9ENW:  My theories & conclusions here only depend that jealousy is genetic (which I argue it is) and that both sexes have it; this subtle difference on the type of jealousy each sex has doesn't change my conclusions.
   
2. ^KU9EJ3:  It can be used as a fix for jealousy but the fix is partial & temporary.  This subtle difference is sometimes handy in "freeing" each gender. Men especially might get away with having additional sex partners and as long it's "for sex only" (as swinging does exactly) - yes a little sex on the side becomes fine for for him as long as he doesn't commit "emotional infidelity" --um, but wait a minute here, what the heck defines "emotional infidelity"?!  And women can get away with having close male friends who could be mates as long as it's "just friends" (nothing romantic).  But both adult sexes know this is skating on thin ice if not flirting with the devil.  This has NOT removed the the great upsetness nor prepare for if what jealousy is trying to protect against actually DOES happen (sex & pregnancy with another or loss of a mate), just put up a cage around the huge "green-eyed monster" and so we can flirt with it and pray the walls will hold.  IMHO, this is NOT a good approach.
   

   A Japanese painting from 1750 shows a young man catching his lover reading a love letter from a rival. --from Wikipedia

7. ^KU7KZ4:  Being genetic, jealousy has been around in the human lineage for likely over 2 million years.
1. ^KU7L04:  Nearly every human has romantic jealousy and humans have been around about 2 million years.  But it predates that
2. ^KU7L23:  Humans are descendant from common chimpanzee who also had plenty of jealousy.  In fact, "Parties of males 'patrol' for the unfortunate neighbouring males who might be traveling alone, and attack those single males, often killing them." says Wikipedia.
   
3. ^KU7L3T:  So presuming humans got their jealousy from their chimpanzee ancestors (seemingly likely but not certain), jealousy has been around in the human linage for over 2 million years.
   
4. ^KU7L69:   This is important that jealousy has been around so long as that better explains why I've identified least 2 other genetic traits which females have seemingly evolved
   
5. and at least 1 trait males have evolved in response to the females being jealous.
   
8. ^KU6N23:  The bonobo chimpanzee seem to have anti-jealousy, and
   (as a consequence?) they literally "Make love, not war" and apparently more than any other species!
   
1. (pic)^KU6N6L:  Bonobos are very happy creatures, literally making love not war.
   
1. ^KU6NL2:  While it seems unthinkable for us humans (who make fighting part of government, sports, even relationships),
   Bonobos live in a perpetual orgy lifestyle, and are very happy creatures.  In fact practically everyone has sex with everyone else:
1. ^KU723V:  not only do adult males & females have sex with each other but
   
2. ^KU728C:  they're very polyamorous: both males AND females openly have multiple simultaneous sex partners, and in fact
   
3. ^KU7246:  everyone's a bit bisexual: females also have sex with females, and males also have sex with males (with their penises they do rubbing and "sword fighting"), and
4. ^KU725V:   (brace yourself) everyone' also a mild pedophile and incestuous: adults and children have sex, I would guess siblings have sex with each other, and I've been told only thing which seems prohibited is a son & mother having sex.
5. (pic)^KU72GX:  Indeed the way it works is, after you get into a fight with someone, instead of a hand-shake to make up, you have sex!
2. ^KU6NPC:  Also no one worries so much who's child is theirs and the kids are collectively raised by the happy community.
3. ^KU6NJL:  And they have anti-jealousy (actively combat jealousy): when one bonobo  starts getting jealous (romantically possessive), and starts wanting to keep a mate all to him/herself, the whole neighborhood community reacts strongly: No sex for him/her from anyone! (and I would suppose in bonobo's terms this is a huge punishment, like excommunicating him/her).  So any jealousy gene dies out fast.  As it seems any hint jealousy is shunned and dealt with severely.
4. ^KU8Q68:  Likely also significant, "Bonobo society is dominated by females".
5. ^KUA4EJ:  Note http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo#Closeness_to_humans saying bonobos have a large range of emotions, expressions, & gestures which humans can understand and "they can respond to spoken sentences" speaking (through a keyboard) a vocabulary "of more than 500 English words" and a "comprehension of around 3,000 spoken English words" --sounds like they should write their own Wikipedia page -maybe so!
   
6. ^KU8QH6:  my sources for the above data on Bonobos (when not otherwise cited) are from a nature documentary on bonobos I recall I saw in about 2002 (to be found), an about 3 min excerpt of a bonobo documentary included the film The Lifestyle (1999), and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo#Psychological_characteristics & especially http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo#Sexual_social_behavior.
   
2. ^(pic)KUA3W6:  And here's some more animal 3-somes, 4-somes, & orgy photos which will definitely bring a grin.
   
3. (pic)^KU6OA8:  Now tragically we humans did NOT evolve from bonobos but entirely/primarily from Common Chimpanzee who have routine fighting, territorial, jealousy, pecking orders, male dominated, violent gangs, child abuse, female abuse, and more; this article 2nd this point. Indeed in 2 million years we humans have made modest improvements in these areas (well say in the last 50 years with women's rights and sexual harassment policy -- it took a while).  And as crazy as it sounds, all this violence we do may simply be because the bonobo's shunned jealousy so "make love, not war" but our Common Chimpanzee ancestors  we didn't!  So...
   
4. ^KU6NZM:  How the heck did bonobos stop jealousy but we humans didn't?
   
1. ^KU6O2F:  an anti-jealousy gene that bonobos have but humans don't?  Possibly.
2. ^KU6O3C:  But it also could be simply be just being chimpanzee, bonobos are intelligent enough to see when someone's being possessive and so (by luck) their culture has developed to shun jealousy faster than it appeared.  Whereas the Common Chimpanzee (else other creature we humans evolved from) got infected with jealousy early, before developing much intelligence else culture to spot & kill jealousy, so by the time this could have happened "the" jealousy gene was in most everyone.@@everywhere.it was too late.  just as we Americans today would not put up with someone trying take away freedom of speech.
5. ^KUCNMQ:  If having orgies all the time (and w/o condoms, etc), why aren't bonobos plagued with sexual disease as humans would be? 
   
1. ^KUCNOW:   This is a great question which just occurred to me.  I haven't yet figured out the answer.
2. ^KUCNTE:  It is quite possible that bonobos were hit by sexual disease as would be expected, maybe even some serious ones as HIV, but with survival of the fittest normal genetic evolution eventually rid it.
1. ^KUCNWC:  Indeed bonobos orgy sexy style may make me wonder if they have evolved to be immune to be sexual diseases/infections that plague others as humans, as perhaps they are immune to HIV.
   
   
9. ^KUBKQ4:  Levels of jealousy, from high to typical (miscalled "I'm not jealous") to actual zero jealousy (comperson)
1. ^KU46HS:  High amounts of jealousy. 
   This is (rightly) widely accepted as is bad: very & increasingly counter productive within humans, seemingly because humans are the smartest creatures, and live in community, so can easily readily see high jealousy's negative effects: 
1. ^KU7I5H:  it drives smart mates away (especially males, as males also want sexual variety);
2. ^KU7I6P:  the only thing it might keep are weak mates (which a person generally doesn't want): these are probably men & women who grew up in abusive households so confuse the abuse of jealousy with love.  But as society gets more and more educated the highly jealous male and even the female is probably going to get labeled as abusive and run into legal issues and have all mates taken from him: get a restraining order against him/her or even be imprisoned for violent romantic crime.
3. ^KU9T9H:  And of course jealousy, especially high jealousy, does harm & burn-out to the jealous person, too, easily filling the brain with "crazy little dreams & demons", as this 1835 caricature (right) well portrays.
   
2. ^KU7IEU:  medium (typical) jealousy.
   This is (sadly) thought to be okay:
   
1. ^KUBL0G:  specifically simply the desire that your mate have no other mates plus regular reasonable checks to insure this, is still accepted by about 95% of the population and even heavily admired: they say (too complimentary) the mate is "dedicated/loyal"
   
2. ^KUBLSE:  In fact this typically miscalled "Not being jealous":  No it is it is plenty jealous: see what zero jealousy is.  So instead this should be called "being typically jealous".
   
3. ^KU7SVH:  This is (sadly) commonly accepted because seemingly everyone is somewhat romantically jealous so people mis-assume it couldn't be otherwise so must be okay, plus women-especially often mis-think jealousy is love, plus most people only know of monogamy as the solution to jealousy or are inexperienced in all the more advanced romance solutions.
   
4. ^KU7TZ8:  But this doesn't cut it as with limited exception, all jealousy is still bad; don't believe it?  See
   
3. ^KUBLER:  true zero jealousy
   (which, since nearly all humans have medium-jealousy, really means reversing jealousy, anti-jealousy, what polyamorists termed compersion): few people know & could imagine this exists, but it does and is the truly loving reaction.
   
1. ^KUQ3EW:  Never forget the bonobos have it (anti-jealousy) and (so?) a completely positive romance world.
   
2. ^KUBM5Q:  Zero jealousy is very hard unless you're born with zero-jealousy.  For
1. ^KUBLZC:  as long as you are upset by the thought/sight of a mate you're attracted to instead be romantic with another mate even if they are happy together, you are  jealous.
   
3. ^KUBLNB:  What is compersion?  Being pleased that your mate and another mate NOT YOU are romantically happy together.
4. ^KUBLOX:   What is real zero jealousy (100% compersion)?  (Brace yourself)  It is being delighted by watching your mate and another mate NOT you having great sex and a great romantic time together.
5. ^KU46SX:  No jealousy (or even the opposite of jealousy: compersion) does good in the long-term:
   
1. ^KUBMP4:  (not surprisingly) a very positive effect on the strong men (whom a mate wants to keep) : give 'em freedom and instead they want to stay with you more!
   
1. ^KUBMW9:  Of course: because most men don't want to be locked down as they want and usually can manage romantic variety (and this then is truly loving to them to give it to them, especially when so few women let them have it)
2. ^KUBMZU:  But only once men believe the compersion is sincere (which will take some time) as (unless the man is new to dating) prior women have tried to trick him by pretending to give him compersion ("Oh, sure, she's hot; go over and talk with her") only to treat him brutally (or leave him) if he believes her and accepts her encouragement.
   
2. ^KUBN8F:  a tragically very negative immediate effect on most women (because men have bread women to hate wanting additional mates) however (given safe sex) this is counter to the female's health (and indeed female bonobos have multiple mates and there females dominate) so we want to figure out ways to undo this.
   
   
10. ^KU7J08:  All jealousy is bad & destructive (except to know it so to deal with others who haven't rid it and to protect from it & deal with it)
    
1. ^KU7PMF:  "Wait a minute" some may (mis)think, "Seemingly everyone's got romantic jealousy; it's normal & accepted; so how could it be bad?"  --Oh but it is:
   
1. ^KU7PWZ:  Just because something is typical in everyone does NOT mean it's good & healthy.  Everyone has some hate but is that good?  Of course not!  We are a product of nature and nature has a lot of cruel things which are normal and jealousy is a perfect example;  see where jealousy comes from, see that it's not love.
2. ^KU7PXK:  And because jealousy has been around so long (likely over 2 million years), we have adapted to dealing with it so much that we typically don't see how bad it is as being desensitized but still when jealousy gets high, most all of us can still see how jealousy is really bad; but regardless, remember where jealousy comes from, see that it's not love --so whether we can smell the badness or not, with limited exception, all jealousy is still bad.
   
2. ^KU7JCU:  First & foremost romantic jealousy is anti-love, the OPPOSITE of loving ("wanting what's best for"): it is purely romantic selfishness.
1. ^KU7JYX:  "Wait a minute" some may (mis)think (especially women), "I thought & even felt that when a person is jealous over you, that means they really love you." (indeed disappointingly Robin Williams even made this claim of himself in his 1988 film Bicentennial Man)  NO!
   
1. ^KU7K2T:  That means they are romantically selfish.  That means subconsciously they want to control you romantically for their own selfish survival and the reproduction of THEIR genes, not yours.
   
2. ^KU7KGS:  In contrast, loving you would be "wanting what's best for" you.  But jealousy is totally & exclusively (as sociobiology shows) wanting what's best for them, even if you die in the process, just as long as the offspring with their genes survive!
3. ^KU7KI3:  However since human jealousy has been around for likely over 2 million years, two key things likely happened:
1. ^KU7KX0:  Females evolved to accept & deal with male jealousy (as it was quite dangerous): so instead of being bothered so much by male jealousy, now they had adapted to live with it.
   
2. ^KU7KWS:  and since jealousy is a deep genetically-coded urge to monopolize your mate romantically for your advantage, naturally whenever there was romance and real romantic love (and also more than one mate to pick) then there was also romantic jealousy.  But jealousy again is romantic selfishness, so this is also like saying "where there is good, there also often is evil."  But 99.99% of those millions of years we had jealousy we were very primitive: we probably didn't see this distinction that one (romantic love) was good and the other (jealousy) was bad (indeed many/most of us still don't get this today!), we just saw that the two (love & jealousy) often came together.  So in that huge time period it's quite conceivable that ether genetically else culturally we learned that "someone being jealous of someone indicates they love that person".  Consequently you now may have this misbelief, maybe even genetically, but it's wrong.
4.  ^KU7MQT:  So the correct belief: every degree a creature is jealous over another is the amount he/she is NOT loving that other.  (Analogous to compersion)
2. ^KU7O0V:  Being jealous is always being unloving.  But catering to another's jealousy can be loving to them in the short term, but really only if they admit their jealousy is bad and they are actively working to rid it.  --As doing this is literally catering to another person's selfishness (i.e., to his/her being NOT loving), so to not be adding more bad with bad, the overall action must still to rid the negative.
   
3. ^KU7O7Q:  Also to the degree people continue to act on jealousy, having jealousy (but ideally not thinking and acting according to it) is useful to tell you why others (and potentially yourself, too) are doing & thinking they way they are.
   
3. ^KU7OSR:  Jealousy apparently does NOT create offspring which are more fit, just more romantically selfish.  (It seems to be a leading exception to "Survival of the fittest".)
4. (pic)^KU7J34:  jealousy obviously encourages fighting, and historically even humans killing each other.
1. ^KU7J62:  Indeed in the 1800s in the United States, it was legal for a man to murder his wife if he caught her in bed with another man as long as he did it immediately in his rage.
2. ^KUA1HA:  And in the American wild west, if a man had sex with another man's wife, I believe he might challenge him to gun dual.  And in Europe, I understand routinely it would a fencing dual (indeed I've heard so many aristocratic men were dying from fencing duals it became a serious problem).
   
3. ^KU7OIT:  In fact romantic jealousy MIGHT explain why humans fight so much: that possibly because of jealousy all sorts of fighting genes (to master it) have developed in humans, also making us try to be macho and sending us to war.  This is just a theory but it's worth remembering the bonobos don't have jealousy and don't fight: in fact they make love, not war and more than any other species.
4. (pic)^KU7OQ4:  Is the fighting (from jealousy) overall bad for the humans?
   
1. ^KU7OUR:  I would think so, the offspring seem no more fit, just romantically selfish and so monopolizing and fighting with each other, hurting the overall community.
2. ^KU7P16:   However jealousy could have taught humans to be such good fighters (even refining their fighting), that while this made human society more miserable, it COULD have helped teach humans to dominate other species (and eventually the planet as they have).  I would not like to think such ugliness is true.  All creatures have a tendency to dominate if given the chance and more likely humans dominated simply because they were smartest.   But I'm still left wondering as to how jealousy could be an exception to "Survival of the fittest" and possibly this is the answer: less fit short-term but MAYBE more fit & surviving longer-term.  But then such fighting & jealousy still causes humans to be in threat of wiping themselves out in ways such as nuclear war.  So just as jealousy only hurts the species in the short term (damaging community), as would feel intuitive, I'm still tending to think jealousy similarly has no redeeming & only destructive benefits in the long term.
   
5. ^KU7ODT:  jealousy causes us not to share appropriately, and that's obviously unfriendly & bad.
   
6. ^KU7J4A:  Jealousy encourages you to monopolize and lock down a mate, which is bad (NOT friendly to that mate).
1. ^KU7JXS:  And yes jealousy has been around so long (over 2 million years) that most women now genetically accept this (only wanting one mate, or at least the appearance of that).
   
2. ^KU7JY4:  But most males well know instinctively the benefits of sexual variety and can tell you (if you get them to be honest to a woman) that it is routinely quite painful and in many ways unsatisfying to be locked down to just one mate. 
   
7. ^KU7N5T:  EVERY form of romance agrees jealousy has got to go and rids it as best it can:  From the most primitive to the most advanced:
   
1. ^KU7NSR:  Monogamy is sometimes justified by the avoidance of jealousy: "If I let my mate have other romance partners I would be jealous and visa-versa, so let's not have any additional partners." but still additional romance partners are desired (and often very quickly) in the long term monogamy takes a takes a grin&bear-it approach, but "The best romance is based on friendship and friendship is fundamentally non-exclusive, so monogamy is fundamental unfriendly".
   
2. ^KU7N7K:  Cheating and "Don't ask, don't tell" hides/covers things which would cause jealousy knowing jealousy will cost big.
3. ^KU7NRZ:  Prostitution, "the world's oldest profession" (for 1000s of years), always makes obvious the prostitute is being shared so being jealousy over him or her has no place.
4. ^KU7N8N:  Swinging limits itself to narrow areas (notably brief sex only encounters, with safe sex) where, without much additional logic, some can learn to swallow their jealousy.
   
5. ^KU7PL3:  Polygamy, which has been around seemingly at least 2000 years in Islam, always makes obvious that the spouses of the same gender need to cut their jealousy or the family obviously isn't going to work.
6. (pic)(pic)^KU7MVM:  In polyamory: polyamorists intuitively nailed the jealousy dilemma and what to do about it: they not only uniquely got the idea to shun jealousy 100%, but brilliantly to also have people actively do the opposite of romantic jealousy --to do else teach yourself to get pleasure that your other mates are romantically pleased by mates other than you!-- even created a new word for it: compersion. 
   
1. ^KUQ2EK:  And most remarkably, polyamorists apparently pioneered compersion intuitively: without even having a biological explanation (such as mine) showing  where jealousy comes from revealing (if true) that this hugely un-automatic way of looking at things (at what would normally make one very jealous) --comperison, which is very much like "love thy enemy", was actually precisely on target: as jealousy is almost certainly just a very selfish gene most everyone has and so then is especially quite the opposite of loving.
2. ^KUQ2JM: See what true zero-jealousy (really anti-jealousy) mean.
   
7. ^KU7NKI:  And Romance-friends™ - romance form for the 21st century shows it's obvious jealousy needs to be out the door: the best romance is really based on friendship and jealousy obviously ain't friendly, so it's gotta go! AND it includes polyamory & polyamory's compersion to help rid it!
8. ^KU7YNY:  Indeed, jealousy appears to be the starter and main cause of the-war-of-the-sexes.
   
1. ^KU7YPQ:   While at first pass we think of the problem being the men want many & simultaneous mates and the women just want one at a time, we need to remember that women wanting just one mate at a time (and definitely definitely publicly) appears to have come from male jealousy. 
   
2. ^KU7YYQ:  Further backing this up then is the fact that the bonobos have anti-jealousy and (as consequence?) the females are multi-partner and they make love, not war and more than any other species!
3. ^KU7ZR1: Finally EVERY form of romance agrees jealousy has got to go and rids it as best it can.
   
11. ^KU6TI9:  Eradicating the jealousy gene from the population after outbreak has occurred: seems impossible.
    
1.  ^KU6TLX:  The only way to breed it out would seem to only breed future generations from the individuals which don't have the jealousy gene, and considering that would then be telling about 99% (or more) of the population not to bear any children (as only maybe "1 in 6000" humans don't have jealousy), I just don't see that happening without an terrible and likely un-winnable war.
   
12. ^KU6MMG:  Jealousy gene outbreak prevention: not only does it look possible but bonobos outsmarted jealousy and (so?) literally "Make love, not war"
1. ^KU6MTJ:  If jealousy trait appears by mutation (as it appears to) it could popup more than once and at random times. And one's it's got it's foot in the door (as spread a couple generations) it spreads like a virus and it wipes out non-jealousy seemingly 99.9% or more.  So it seems the only way to prevent this from eventually happening is to have counter-mechanism in place which kill off the jealousy gene before it can get a foot-hold.
2. ^KUBRP0:  The bonobos apparently did this.  
   
3. @@
   
13.   ^KU7V5K:  Living with but really minimizing jealousy.
1. ^KU7V9G:  This seems the only option for humans, because it's way too late for jealousy outbreak prevention and eradicating the jealousy gene after outbreak seems impossible.  And solving it seems critical because jealousy appears to be the core problem in the war of the sexes.
   
2. ^KU7VDG: Each successive romance form developed offers better solutions here - read for ideas; however none of these offer a strategy for mass reduction in society's jealousy, just techniques to use in romance, and often (cart before the horse) you typically need to remove the jealousy before you can start that relationship, but you need the power of the relationship in order to remove the jealousy.  Also while it seems the women giving up their jealousy produces good results in the men, the men doing this for the women generally backfires.   So it's very frustrating.
   
3. ^KU7VPJ:  Since the women seem to be the difficulty here (maybe from women having to adapt so much to male jealousy it isn't easy to undo!), and since wherever the women are the men follow (being the initiators), it seems the focus needs to be on activities which definitely change the women.  Plus to effect massive change we need something easily scalable: individual training only if done by a computer or delegated as pyramid style, else some sort of group activities.  On that note, my ideas include:
1. ^KU7VYG:  My group for women with or wanting simultaneous partners -teaching them to instead appreciate sexual variety.
2. ^KU7WSA:  These other fall under gradually facing your fears (what would make you jealous) so it will go away.
   
1. ^KU7VZJ:  Social networking websites where one's friends are long term (stay on the page after the romance ends) and can see each other there, making it more obvious & acceptable (especially to & for the woman) to be having sex with several people  (Indeed you can see them all there on this one's friends page) -where people can't hide all there mates of the past, they still stick around, so jealousy starts looking increasingly silly.
   
2. ^KU7WI5:  In-person activities where recent mates and maybe even simultaneous mates are regularly brought together in a friendly & perhaps busy way so hiding other romances becomes impractical and jealousy starts looking silly and perhaps no time to think of it.  Think of it as gradually getting you to socialize & be friends with those you might be jealous over.
3. ^KU7WUS:  Events where romantic couples together gradually flirt with other prospective mates and couples.  One person in the couple helps the other person find or flirt with a mate, and then visa-versa.  Over time the couple's the romance with the new person or couple can get more & more intimate.
4. ^KU7YCW:  Bisexuality activities, as at least one bisexual seems to be at the core of many polyamory 3-or-more groups, and (as) a bisexual is attracted to both sexes and since neither fully satisfies it's kind of logical to have one of each, and the simultaneous partners then necessarily reduces jealousy.  I am thinking of romantic events involving if not centering around many bisexuals and/or getting people to explore their bisexuality.

^KU9K9N:  Addendum:

1. ^KUJPP0:  What name should we use for this postulated Gene giving us "Jealousy"?
1. ^KUJUIL:  For right now I'm calling it "Jealousy".  But,
   
2. ^KUJPR8:  A problem is that the likely-genetically-wired traits involved cover more than jealousy; I can think of at least two fundamental feelings:
1. ^KUJPTK:  "Romantically or more, I don't want you to be with anyone but me, and I don't want anyone but me to be with you, and just as a fundamental desire that I have so not for any reason that I automatically know"
   
1. ^KUJSPL:  This is is the definition of "Jealousy" I refer to in this article and it matches the male's and the female's jealous behavior described in the article.
1. ^KUJSR5:  Aside: since the behavior is more exact than the feeling, perhaps humans "evolved" the feeling to somehow summarize the behavior they were doing.  How core feelings and behaviors are connected & came about is important, but seems not relevant here, just that the two are in-line.
   
2. ^KUJQNC:  Note this suggests but does not strictly mean "Romantically or more, I want you".  But DOES seem to mean "Romantically or more, I want you to some degree."  And for good reasons:
   
1. ^KUJR5P:  It is often the case with a very jealous person that "I don't actually have a strong desire for you romantically but I definitely don't want you to be romantic with anyone but me." (making their jealous sentiment even more unloving, which is not surprising as it was unloving to begin with). 
   
2. ^KUJR4R:  But it does seem to exclude the possibility of "Romantically or more for me, I'm neutral or I don't like you" because then it would be very odd if impossible to feel "Romantically or more, I don't want anyone but me to be with you" especially "as a fundamental desire that I have so not for any reason that I automatically know".
   
3. ^KUJQC6:  This jealousy I define as and like to refer to as "romantic selfishness" to clarify that this is only jealousy in a romance sense (as sometimes "jealousy" is used to mean "envy") plus to emphasize the negative aspect here of "selfishness".  And this definition meets the criteria of this expanded definition of jealousy; for instance, it also implies "Romantically or more, I want you to some degree.".
   
2. ^KUJPY7:  "I would not feel I was enough if, romantically or more, you also wanted to be with someone else, and just as a fundamental desire that I have so not for any reason that I automatically know",
   
1. ^KUJT0W:  This exists (a few times, I have, too).  Men especially are often (too) sensitive that they perform well sexually and women clearly work very hard to look good and are often too sensitive in these areas as how they look (as "Do I look fat?" is not to be answered honestly).
   
1. ^KUJS35:   This is NOT jealousy.  So what is it?   Perhaps "romantic insecurity"?  Maybe, though something makes me feel "insecurity" is a bit too strong.  More work is needed here. @@@
   
2. ^KUJS9J:  In any case, this feeling of "I would not feel I was enough if you were with others" could be a rationalization for "I don't want you to be with anyone but me" even if was not, "I don't want you to be with anyone but me" is an obvious (though unloving) way to solve "I would not feel I was enough if you were with others".  Consequently the article seems to already deal with "I would not feel I was enough if you were with others" to a great part already, and for what it does deal with it fully applies.  Still,
3. ^KUJUCK:  I guess I'll leave things with the following dialog:
   
1. ^KUJTV1:  Romantic non-exclusivity goes against the fundamental feeling of "You must be with only me else I would not feel I was enough"; Is this okay?
2. ^KUJU4C:  Yes, because saying "you MUST cater to me" is no being loving.
   
3. ^KUJUA5:   But then non-exclusivity is okay, why then would we have this bad fundamental feeling "I would not feel enough?"
4. ^KUJUB0:  It could be from jealousy, or or definitely causes jealous behavior.  But that's not a full answer.  So we still need to get a full answer.  @@
   
2. ^KU9E12:  Passage from the book "Gut reactions..." by Jessie J. Prinz pp 120-122 with bold added quote[
   ...evolutionary psychologists predict a gender difference in jealousy. Women who have offspring know that those offspring are theirs.  If they invest resources in their offspring, they will be investing in close genetic relatives.  Men have no such guarantee.  If their female partners give birth, men cannot be certain about their paternity; their partners could have other sexual partners. When a man invests resources in a child that he takes to be his, he is at some risk that he is investing on someone who isn't genetically related. For men, then, sexual infidelity is very big threat.  Men want to make sure their female partners are not promiscuous so they do not end up helping someone else's genes.  Women face an entirely different risk. They have no doubt about their maternity, but they do worry their male partners will not be there to help them with the burden of child-rearing. So women care more about emotional infidelity. If a male partner is showing affection for someone else, he may also not be planning to allocate his resources elsewhere.
   
   (pic) In sum, evolutionary psychology predicts that men will be more jealousy of sexual infidelity, and women will be more jealousy of emotional infidelity.  Buss, Larson, Western, and Semmelroth (1992) conducted a series of studies that seemed to bear this out.  Given the choice between these two kinds of infidelity men say sexual infidelity is worse and women say emotional infidelity is worse.  Bus and Larson even measured automatic responses and found that men show greater automatic response when contemplating sexual infidelity.  The consider this this an experimental demonstration that of their evolutionary hypothesis.  If they are right, jealousy is a biologically based emotional that was selected for its adaptive role.
   
   This account of jealousy is seductive, but the evidence does not hold up under scrutiny. [4 paragraphs on that point.]
   
   The evidence for innateness of jealousy is weak at best. ...] -I disagree.
   

---

^KQ3SYF:  Some document history:

1. ^KU80S0:  Prior the above topic was all part of The War of the Sexes" is BRED-in for a billion years! KQ3MG4 source but that was to big so moved the entire topic to this Writely doc. posted to http://Blogger.LoveRules.Info/2009/12/ku7zwa.html
2. ^KU8PJX:  (2009.12.06) This article is likely on target as far as its insights & thinking but lacks some fact checking plus some citation of sources on biological details.
   Named to["The" Jealousy (romantic selfishness) Gene in "everyone" KU7ZWA]
   
3. ^KUHDHN:  2009.12.11pst0110 published at "(90% complete)"
4. ^KUIZ2W:  Renamed to[KU7ZWA("The" Jealousy (romantic selfishness) Gene in "everyone")] per the new naming convention.

http://Blogger.LoveRules.Info/2009/12/ku7zwa.html  © 2009.12.03; all original writing by me (143144602), most of my ideas I came up with about 2002.