aquila_black

[I dislike posts that involve scrolling through a ton of images to read a modest amount of text. So here's what it said.

Narrator: The Keekorok [baboon] troop took to foraging for food in the garbage dump of a popular tourist lodge. The trash included meat tainted with tuberculosis. The result was that nearly half the males in the troop died.

Sarpolsky: It wasn't random who died.

Narrator: Every alpha male was gone.

Sarpolsky: And what you were left with was twice as many females as males, and the males who were remaining were, just to use the scientific jargon, they were good guys. It completely transformed the atmosphere in the troop. This particular troop has a culture of very low levels of aggression, and they're doing that twenty years later. If they're able to, in one generation, transform what are supposed to be textbook social systems engraved in stone, we don't have an excuse when we say there's certain inevitabilities about human social systems.]

shitifindon:

skysquids:

jhameia:

driftingfocus:

anogoodrabblerouser:

disquietingtruths:

universalequalityisinevitable:

Robert Sapolsky about his study of the Keekorok baboon troop from National Geographic’s Stress: Portrait of a Killer.

Thiiiiiiis, people, thiiiis!

1. Kill alpha male types
2. Achieve world peace

Got it.

I’ve actually read a lot of Sapolsky’s work.  He’s one of my favorite scientists in the neuro/socio world.

I just watched the documentary and there is so much more about the troop that isn’t in this photoset—not only does the troop have a culture of little aggression and greater cooperation, but any incoming jerk baboons learned within a few months that their shitty behaviour was in no way acceptable, that the troop only rewarded sociability, and they changed accordingly. 

If effin’ baboons can learn this there’s pretty much no reason to believe that our only option in dealing with assholes is to just ignore their behaviour and let it continue.

there really is no excuse.

"incoming jerk baboons" hahaha