Like Walt Kelly's Cowbirds in Pogo, they want "to share, to share what others have."

March 18, 2007 9:55 PM

Hey, dis here nest you got iz real nize. I sees you already gotcha a pretty leetle egg hera. Be a real pity if somethin' bad happened to dis nest, capisce? By da way, you don' mind takin' care my leetle egg, too, do ya? Do ya?
posted by orthogonality (42 comments total)

Now who wants to be my wingman?
posted by orthogonality at 9:56 PM on March 18, 2007

"When I see such behavior, I think of a..."
posted by taosbat at 10:19 PM on March 18, 2007

Then there's the coot. If they get an inkling that there's not enough moss and bugs to go around, they will peck and beat the least favorite child until it stops coming home, and runs away and dies. Isn't it cute how alike we are to the amminals?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:24 PM on March 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

didja hear about the girl who kissed her canary and caught chirpes? her doctor told her it was untweetable.
posted by bruce at 10:36 PM on March 18, 2007 [2 favorites]

"You have an alpha male, and he will try to keep his supporters away from his rivals. His supporters are in trouble if they groom one of his rivals."

Always a dead giveaway.
posted by three blind mice at 10:40 PM on March 18, 2007

They don't mow each other down with submachine guns. They don't starve one another for political gain. They don't starve themselves for political gain, because the other animals don't give a shit.

Outside humanity, actions are generally more direct and honest. It's about survival. When lions and hyenas fight, it's over territory, or food. Or the hyenas just smell bad and they were downwind. Simple.

When humans fight, it's over whose personification of an abstraction has the biggest penis. That's just fucked up. Just looking at our history of the past hundred years, I'd say the animals got us beat.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:41 PM on March 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

We're not chimps! We're bonobos!
posted by redbeard at 10:50 PM on March 18, 2007

ZachsMind writes "When humans fight, it's over whose personification of an abstraction has the biggest penis. "

Well, sure. Because animals are NOT fighting to survice, they're fighting to reproduce. Survival is simply a side-effect, a necessary side-effectpecies that nurture their young.

Like animals, we fight for the right to breed. It's no coincidence that organized war has its roots in organized gang-raping. (See the Sabine women, the Bible, studies of tribes in the Amazon or New Guinea. Hell, what's the Iliad all about? Alpha males starting wars because they didn't get to rape who they wanted.)

ZachsMind gos on "When lions and hyenas fight, it's over territory, or food."

But when lions fight lions, the winning male immediately kills the loser's cubs, to bring the loser's females back into estrus. The winner doesn't (just) want to have sex, he wants to have descendents. So kils the rival's cubs not out of vindictiveness but because that makes the females fertile for him.

Same thins with many primates: when a primate becomes the alpha, he kills infants that aren't his. This may be one reason that human females don't make it apparent when they are fertile.

Animals don't "have us beat", because we are animals. Yes, we have a bag of tricks based on a bigger cortex, but our motives and desires predate that. We use that shiny new bag of tricks to achieve our evolutionarily ancient animal goals. Sometimes, we use those mental tricks to rationalize our motives, to build grandiose excuses to explain that what we do isn't "animalistic". That may make you feel better, but those are mostly comforting lies.

Indeed, being able to make the beautiful lies ("dulce et decorum est, pro patria mora", "for God and country", "long live the proletarian revolution" are only a few of many such) makes it easier to go about doing whatever it takes to secure our "animalistic" goals, the central one of which is reproduction.
posted by orthogonality at 11:00 PM on March 18, 2007 [9 favorites]

I ain't reproducing. You're welcome.
posted by ZachsMind at 11:06 PM on March 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

In the comic strip Pogo when Walt Kelly wanted to represent American Communists, he used cowbirds.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 11:37 PM on March 18, 2007

Scientists such as de Waal argue the research suggests that, much as people believe in the originality of their thoughts, a lot of human cognition probably takes place at an automatic level, guided by inborn tendencies.

Why is de Waal arguing, and with whom? I thought most of this stuff was pretty common knowledge.*

* Void where prohibited. Not applicable in some states.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:41 PM on March 18, 2007

The Goodfeathers were the wrong species, I guess.
posted by painquale at 11:47 PM on March 18, 2007

I take an odd comfort knowing that my venality is not an exclusively human trait.
posted by Dizzy at 11:55 PM on March 18, 2007

Steven C. Den Beste writes "In the comic strip Pogo when Walt Kelly wanted to represent American Communists, he used cowbirds."

Yes, Steven. That's what the title refers to. And the Polecat Simple J. Malarky represented Joe McCarthy.
posted by orthogonality at 12:14 AM on March 19, 2007

Sorry Steven, didn't mean to sound snippy, thanks for explicating it.
posted by orthogonality at 12:18 AM on March 19, 2007

ortho---
you're not being snippy, you're simply modeling an Alpha Hyena.
posted by Dizzy at 12:21 AM on March 19, 2007 [2 favorites]

aparently these "scientists" who are just now making the "humans = animals" connection never went to highschool.

fun fact - you can make trips to the bar much more entertaining if you imagine all the people communicating using primate hooting.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 12:32 AM on March 19, 2007

Works with metafilter too.
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:54 AM on March 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

"imagining"?
posted by Catfry at 12:55 AM on March 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

this is nonsense, Genesis (the Book, not the band) clearly says that this is impossible
posted by matteo at 2:42 AM on March 19, 2007

When Emory University primatologist Frans de Waal read a news story that said Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, had hurled a chair across the room on hearing an employee was going to work for rival Google, the scientist immediately made a connection with his own research: "When I see such behavior, I think of a chimpanzee."

When I hear of such behavior, I think: asshole.
posted by psmealey at 3:58 AM on March 19, 2007 [2 favorites]

Geez. Who doesn't think of a chimpanzee when they see Steve Ballmer?
posted by octothorpe at 4:25 AM on March 19, 2007

Sorry, I don't generally notice the titles on these posts.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:35 AM on March 19, 2007

We're not chimps! We're bonobos!

Nah, if we were bonobos, women would run things and there would be sex in the streets.

Unfortunately, we're just chimpanzees with wristwatches.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 5:12 AM on March 19, 2007

I think I'm going to stop believing in science that isn't compatible with the word of Peter Gabriel. That'll work way better than that other infallible source on cosmology that I was using.

(The Phil Collins albums, of course, get filed under "apocrypha.")
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:19 AM on March 19, 2007 [2 favorites]

Oh, now I get it -- all the nitpicking I see here in the blue? It's grooming, a social behavior.

Just like the chimps, only less literal and more metaphorical.

Metaphors be with you.
posted by pax digita at 5:59 AM on March 19, 2007

de Waal's seminal work: Chimpanzee Politics.

In the late 1970s, I began writing Chimpanzee Politics, a popular account of the power struggles among the Arnhem males....The U.S. Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, put the Arnhem political saga on the recommended reading list for freshmen Congressmen, in 1994.
posted by geos at 6:38 AM on March 19, 2007

(The Phil Collins albums, of course, get filed under "apocrypha.")

Shouldn't that be "heresy" or "apostasy"?

Interesting article, thanks. It's always good to be reminded that we aren't the special little snowflake of a species we would like to be.
posted by TedW at 6:49 AM on March 19, 2007

They don't mow each other down with submachine guns. They don't starve one another for political gain. They don't starve themselves for political gain, because the other animals don't give a shit.

Chips do kill each other occasionally. I'm sure they would use guns if they got their hands on them.

Anyway, the article doesn't really say anything new, and it has a dumb headline (I think headlines are usually written by an editor, not the author)
posted by delmoi at 7:11 AM on March 19, 2007

So... the whole thing was just an excuse to call Steve Ballmer a monkey, right?
posted by Krrrlson at 8:00 AM on March 19, 2007

orthogonality said: Now who wants to be my wingman?

I'm there for ya babe. I'll go start working on my ritual mating dance then, shall I?
posted by dejah420 at 8:00 AM on March 19, 2007

...imagine all the people communicating using primate hooting.

Desmond Morris has been hooting our hairless primacy for some 40 years now.

Call me a skeptic, but I don't think the application of intellect will change us very much.
posted by cenoxo at 8:04 AM on March 19, 2007

"Emily DuVal, a biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, found that male lance-tailed manakins display the behavior seen at nightclubs, where a person plays "wingman" or "wingwoman" to help a friend impress a potential mate."

This is why scientists fail at nightclubs.

The purpose of a "wingman" is not to help you impress your mark. The wingman exists solely to actively target and occupy any fat chicks that may be attached to your mark, thereby preventing you from gaining her full attention while you exercise your trade.

Does anyone even call them "nightclubs" anymore? That word makes me think of my Uncle Al in corduroy leisure suit.

Some argue the classic vocation of "wingman" has grown outmoded.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 10:30 AM on March 19, 2007

Interesting read, now we need more cowbirds.
posted by Vindaloo at 10:36 AM on March 19, 2007

So... we're still animals, because we still do things for the sole purpose of reproduction. We just gussy it up.

Explain elective hysterectomy/vasectomy to me in terms of how we are like animals, please?
posted by po at 11:09 AM on March 19, 2007

My favorite Ev Psych story is the capuchin monkey money experiment (discussed previously here & here). My absolute favorite part of it is the invention of prostitution among the monkeys. Just amazing.
posted by scalefree at 11:32 AM on March 19, 2007

po: it's an altruistic decision that recognizes the unfitness of the individual & allows redirection of resources to others more fit to reproduce rather than squander them on an unfit parent. The objective is to have the most fit reproduce, not necessarily the whole population.
posted by scalefree at 11:41 AM on March 19, 2007

Question of the Day: How Do You Get Crabs From A Gorilla?
posted by homunculus at 11:41 AM on March 19, 2007

***Fun Facts***

--When Lady Swans mate for life, they turn into swanzillas for a day and force all other Swans in the area to do their bidding.

--Rook parents use shiny stones and berries to "pay" female Rooks, too young to mate, to "babysit" their egg-filled nest. Sometimes the male Rook will mate with the unattached "babysitter" on the sly.

--Elderly Peacocks who have stopped reproducing will chase Peahens with their chicks off "their" lawn and into the bushes.

--Young, inexperienced Jackdaws have been known to ingest too many fermented berries causing them to sing all night while attempting to mate with other males, cats, and even gardening equipment.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:54 AM on March 19, 2007 [2 favorites]

--Young, inexperienced Jackdaws have been known to ingest too many fermented berries causing them to sing all night while attempting to mate with other males, cats, and even gardening equipment.

I think we've all been there at one time or another.
posted by sebastienbailard at 3:54 PM on March 19, 2007

ZachsMind: Just looking at our history of the past hundred years, I'd say the animals got us beat.

Afraid I'd have to disagree. Jared Diamond describes the extermination of a chimpanzee band by a neighboring band in grisly detail. (Scroll down to the middle of the post. I'd quote the story here, but it's a little too long and brutal.)

orthogonality: Like animals, we fight for the right to breed.

If we're going for grand generalizations, I'd say instead that we fight for power. (By power I mean the ability to impose one's will on others, rather than vice versa.) Andrew Schmookler, The Parable of the Tribes:

In an anarchic situation like that, no one can choose that the struggle for power shall cease. But there is one more element in the picture: no one is free to choose peace, but anyone can impose upon all the necessity for power. This is the lesson of the parable of the tribes.

Imagine a group of tribes living within reach of one another. If all choose the way of peace, then all may live in peace. But what if all but one choose peace, and that one is ambitious for expansion and conquest? What can happen to the others when confronted by an ambitious and potent neighbor? Perhaps one tribe is attacked and defeated, its people destroyed and its lands seized for the use of the victors. Another is defeated, but this one is not exterminated; rather, it is subjugated and transformed to serve the conqueror. A third seeking to avoid such disaster flees from the area into some inaccessible (and undesirable) place, and its former homeland becomes part of the growing empire of the power-seeking tribe. Let us suppose that others observing these developments decide to defend themselves in order to preserve themselves and their autonomy. But the irony is that successful defense against a power-maximizing aggressor requires a society to become more like the society that threatens it. Power can be stopped only by power, and if the threatening society has discovered ways to magnify its power through innovations in organization or technology (or whatever), the defensive society will have to transform itself into something more like its foe in order to resist the external force.

I have just outlined four possible outcomes for the threatened tribes: destruction, absorption and transformation, withdrawal, and imitation. In every one of these outcomes the ways of power are spread throughout the system. This is the parable of the tribes.

More succinctly, Hans Morgenthau quotes John Randolph: You may cover whole skins of parchment with limitations, but power alone can limit power.
posted by russilwvong at 4:05 PM on March 19, 2007

Nuthatches appear to have learned to understand a foreign language — chickadee...
posted by taosbat at 10:15 PM on March 19, 2007