Huh. I just read a perfectly fitting and apt rant that was both righteous and liberating to the OP who needed to ‘get it out’, yet could see the wisdom of not doing so to those actually involved. For the self evident reason that no good would come of it. I think we’ve all been there. I think this is a very safe place for that very thing. And I don’t see anything wrong with it, to be honest.
Leaving aside your monkey story, which seems above all to be about you feeling superior, I think instead of young men. Young men who are play fighting, rough housing whatever you want to call it, we’ve all seen it play out. Sometimes the men have been drinking and it actually strays into real anger and real fisticuffs, yet still leaves them both bosom friends when it finally ends. Women stand round, rolling their eyes, tsk tsking and decrying what children men are, pretty much.
You know why they don’t do more? Because they recognize that the men both are willing combatants, know the risk that one or the other could get a black eye, and yet still want to play!
No one is making you read threads you find ‘beneath’ you. Please explain why, if the pit so offends your superior sensibilities, you’re hanging out there?
It’s a stupid story even when it’s somewhat applicable to a situation. The monkeys aren’t engaging in pointless abuse, they’re enforcing a social norm with a perfectly rational origin. Sure it’s possible that the last set of monkeys, never having been exposed to the original stimuli, maintain this behaviour perfectly, allowing no one access to the bananas that are now actually safe to reach for, and sure it’s possible that there are real life situation where old habits are maintained despite them being detrimental, but how’s that applicable to this subforum?
No one is being whipped into conforming here. This isn’t a correctional facility. It’s a space for venting when the rules of rational debate are just to strict to let you say what you really mean about someone truly stupid.
It’s even open to idiots saying what they really mean about the rational.
> I presume it’s intended to show to some aspect of groupthink, or blind faith say?
My point in giving a citation for the original research is that the description of this experiment as given in the OP isn’t even accurate. The experiment’s description has been distorted through layers of retellings. Somebody here should read the article that this anecdote originated in and tell us what actually happened in this experiment.
Yeah, you haven’t been here long, but some of us have and we still vividly remember the spraying and shocks… so shut the fuck up and stop climbing the stairs asshole!
I skimmed the study because I’d run into it as the OP described before and was curious about its authenticity each time. But never curious enough while in front of a computer to actually track it down. If you’re right that Stephenson is the source, you’re also right that it is not all all as described above.
Monkeys were individually put into a cage with an object. If the monkey tried to manipulate the object, it was blasted with air. Once it had learned to avoid the object, it was placed in the same cage with the same object with an additional monkey of the same sex. Researchers then observed whether the second monkey learned to avoid the object or not.
The results were that in three pairs of monkeys (all males) the second monkey learned to avoid the object. In three other pairs (all females) the second monkey did not avoid the object and, in fact, the first monkey learned that it was okay to manipulate it.
That’s pretty interesting, actually. And here I thought this thread was going to be a waste of time.
So if those monkeys had a message board then one of the original monkeys (Davy, Mike, Peter, Mickey, doesn’t matter which one) would have possibly complained on that message board about how the fuckin hose is such a huge pain in the ass.
Then later generations of monkeys (here we come) could search back in the message board (walkin down the street) and discover that there was a classic zombie thread (get the funniest looks from) that would explain why they should avoid the stairs and take the lift.
Then they wouldn’t need some asshole newbie ({just about} everyone we meet {lately}) to come to the message board and shit out his sage wisdom.