DsOzkZe87zY.srt

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Chimps,
I don't know if you know this or not,

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but chimps basically go to war.
Uh,

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Jane Goodall discovered that a couple of
decades ago and it really,

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really was hard on her because she was 
kind of a ruse soliah.

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So for those of you don't know John,
John Jacques Rousseau is a French 

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philosopher and you know,
French philosophers have a lawful lot of

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sins on their conscience and of course 
we.

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So it was certainly one of them because 
Russell was the first,

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like what fully articulate promoter of 
the idea that human beings were 

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basically good.
So we know we had a good soul in a moral

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sense,
but we were corrupted by our social 

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institutions,
you know,

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so,
um,

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so,
you know,

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as far as Russo was concerned,
it was kind of a noble savage idea,

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you know,
like the human being in their raw form 

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has a pure soul and then you know,
you,

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you give them to parents and you'd give 
them to teachers and you know,

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they'd get into politics and there's 
group disputes and then they get all 

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corrupted,
you know,

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and well,
you know,

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that's,
I don't know even what to say about that

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except that it's absolutely moronic 
keynote,

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but it's,
it's an appealing proposition if you're 

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naive optimist.
I mean,

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first of all,
it doesn't explain where malevolence 

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comes from because the people created 
the institution.

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So,
you know,

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it just puts you into an infinite 
regress chicken and egg if the 

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institutions are reprehensible,
but the people who built them aren't 

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then where did the reprehensible 
elements that the institutions come 

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from?

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You know,
he might think it's an audio generating 

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consequences of organizing people.
But you know,

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it's a pretty specious theory.
So I'm of course he had a counterpart of

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philosophical counterpart,
Thomas Hobbs and Hobbs said basically 

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exactly the opposite,
that you know,

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people were vicious and cruel unless you
like put them in straight jackets 

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fundamentally and made them obey.
Then everything was going to go 

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immediately to help you know,
when,

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when,
when you saw what happened in Iran after

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the Americans walled stand in,
the power structure disintegrated.

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Do you know what was a hell of a lot 
more like than it was like Russell,

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right?
You took out the tyrant at the top and 

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it wasn't like everybody got all 
peaceful and loving.

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All of a sudden it was like absolute 
chaos reigned.

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So you know,
of course you can rationalize that.

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But anyways,
roost.

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So by the way,
had five children by illiterate made 

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that that was as Mr.
and you put every single one of them in 

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orphanages where of course they perished
because orphanages have Russo's times.

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We're not exactly,
you know,

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a luxury resort.
And even up until the beginning of the 

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20th century,
most children who are under one years of

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age who were in care institutions died 
partly disease.

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And that sort of thing,
but often because they just weren't 

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touched,
they weren't cared for physically.

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Even if they were fed and you know,
200 years ago they weren't even fed

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anyway,
so,

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you know,
but nonetheless,

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you know,
people have people

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maintain the optimistic idea that human 
beings were basically good and that they

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were corrupted by institutions.
It's a common idea among.

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I think it's a very common idea in 
universities,

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you know,
because university people are always 

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complaining about the corrupt nature of 
this institution and that institution,

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you know,
while they sit here in the warm with the

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electricity on,
you know,

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it's surrounded by wealth that 
characterizes maybe one 10th of one 

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percent of the entire world's 
population.

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And you know,
they complained about how we'll press 

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they are and how will we know nasty the 
institutions are.

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It's like,
yeah,

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well you actually haven't been to a 
nasty institution,

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you know,
cause nasty institutions.

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They get pretty damn bad.
And most of the institutions in the 

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world are like that.
So it isn't exactly clear that people 

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are pristine in their heart and then 
corrupted by institutions.

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Although I'm sure that happens patent 
depends around,

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for example.
So anyways,

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this has been a line of philosophical 
speculation.

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That's,
that's,

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that's I would say constituted one of 
the unspoken fundamental assumptions of,

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of Western intellectuals in particular.
And Jane Goodall thought,

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you know,
in many ways the same way she thought 

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chimps were basically,
you know,

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they're just animals.
They are okay.

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They exist,
coexist relatively peacefully with one 

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another,
you know,

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even,
um,

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Carl Rogers,
who I talk about a bit in my personality

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class,
you know,

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he basically thought that people are 
fundamentally good and that institutions

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make them bad.
But,

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uh,
the problem is you look at chimps and 

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narrow a fair bit like us,
you know,

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Bonobos,
you can look at them too,

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and they're,
they're genetically quite related to us 

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and they're quite a bit different than 
chimps,

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but.
So we're sort of a weird mixture of the 

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two in some sense.

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But Champs,
like those things,

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there is no evidence that they really 
have any internal control over their 

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regression at all.
You know,

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there was a horrible case about two 
years ago where a woman was interacting 

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with the chimp and it tore her to pieces
and they can do that.

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Man took her face right off and they 
have the strength of about six men,

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like an,
an,

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uh,
an adult.

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Male chimp can break a 300 pound test 
cable,

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you know,
those things are really,

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really strong and they are not friendly,
you know,

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like.
So in Arnhem Zoo for example,

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there's been a troop of chimps there 
that have been followed by an extremely 

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brilliant apartment hall and just named 
Frans de Waal who's work I would very 

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highly recommend.
The Wall is a very smart guy and he's 

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looked at the origins of morality and 
chimpanzees,

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you know,
from a biological perspective,

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it's very,
very nice work.

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Very,
very clearheaded.

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But you know,
he's recounted absolutely horrific 

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stories of chimpanzee behavior.
So one of the stories he talked about,

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for example,
was,

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you know,
when you kind of have this idea that 

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there's a mail chimp hierarchy,
it's roughly true.

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There's a female hierarchy too,
but the males and the chimp world 

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anyways tend to be the dominant ones and
you know,

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you kind of think of a dominant primate 
like a prize fighter,

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you know,
pretty much he's ruling because of his 

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physical prowess.
Now that turns out not to exactly be 

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true,
but in this particular case,

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the guy who was running the chimp troop 
was a bit of a bully and he wasn't very 

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good at making friends.
You know,

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and that's not such a good idea because 
no matter how tough you are by yourself 

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to weaker guys can probably take you 
out.

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And that's what happened during friends 
to was observations and two chimps 

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attack the leader and they had a 
coalition.

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They were grooming each other.
They repels,

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you know,
in chimps are pretty good at remembering

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like risk reciprocal relationships and 
having friendships really.

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Like they have a very highly social 
structure.

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Hey,
just tore him apart.

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Like the things they did to him like you
don't even want to talk about.

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And so chimps have really no upper limit
on their capacity for aggression and 

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when they hunt.
Because chimps,

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Honda and they liked me,
they often call us monkeys and they 

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weigh about 35 pounds,
like a cola.

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This monkeys a major league animal,
and they eat those things alive and they

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scream while they're being killed and 
that does not slow the chimps down one 

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bit.
So it's not obvious that the chimp is 

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really a creature of a lot of empathy,
especially the males.

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The females are likely more empathic 
because they have to deal with infants 

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for longer periods of time.
What seems to inhibit the aggression of 

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mail chimp's isn't anything they hold 
internally.

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It seems that when they get hyper 
aggressive in the truth,

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the truth gets more and more agitated 
and basically shuts them down.

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So you can imagine maybe you're in a 
rough bar and some Dingbat who was,

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you know,
half psychopathic and has had two pints 

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of alcohol is starting to cause a 
tremendous amount of trouble and he's 

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not going to shut himself down,
but the rest of the truth might.

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And that kind of means that the control 
over the aggression is externalized.

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It's not a consequence of super ego 
control.

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And we like to think that we actually 
control our own aggression,

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but I'm not so sure about that.
You know,

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if you read things like there's a great 
book,

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Horrifying Book published about 20 years
ago called the rape of Nanking,

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which is while the woman who wrote it 
committed suicide.

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So that sort of suffices to tell you 
what the rape of Nanking is about.

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And it's a story about the Japanese in 
World War II going into a Chinese kid 

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city called Nan King where I believe 
about 350,000

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people were killed.
And the Nazis in that story where the 

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good guys.
So you can imagine the kind of brutality

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that might be occurring there.
But there's absolutely perfectly well 

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documented evidence suggesting that the 
Japanese soldiers engaged in competitive

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brutality.
You know.

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And so really what happened was the 
Japanese had been pretty militarized by 

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World War Two and native adopted a 
Prussian education system and the 

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Russians and Germans,
you know,

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pre,
Pre 20th century Germans,

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they were basically interested in 
educating obedient soldiers,

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you know,
because it was a militaristic culture 

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and the Japanese kind of adopted that 
because they were sick of being kicked 

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around by the Europeans and pretty 
successfully because they defeated the 

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Russians,
you know,

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in the early stages of Roe or of the 
20th century.

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It was quite a shock to everyone in 
Europe and,

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you know,
cause for great celebration in Japan and

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no wonder.
But anyways,

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they militarize the hell out of their 
young men and taught them basically that

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the Japanese were a master race,
you know,

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and that other people were sub humans.
It's a very common human way of 

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thinking,
by the way.

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I would say it's really the default way 
that human tribes think about other 

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tribes.
You what?

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I mean,
it's a little more complicated than that

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because human tribes tend to trade with 
other tribes.

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So it's not all demonization,
but a lot of it is,

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you know,
and if you look around the world in the 

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anthropological literature,
what you see is that the names that most

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tribes have for themselves is something 
like that,

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human beings or the people you know,
indicating that the rest of the people 

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are reading people,
God only leader,

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barbarians or you know,
they live out where the sun is being 

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eaten by the dragon of the night or 
something like that.

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And you know,
the word barbarian is a,

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is a word that comes from the Greeks 
making fun of how non-greek spoke.

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Know they thought they were bar bar,
Bar,

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Bar,
Bar,

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something like that.
So anyways,

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what goodall phone was the chimps,
the chimp,

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adolescence in particular in particular,
the males would patrol the borders of 

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their territory,
uh,

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in groups of three or four and with 
often with a female or two.

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But the females didn't seem to be really
the,

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the,
the,

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they weren't,
they were more part of the group rather 

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than the initiators.
But what the chimps would do is if they 

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found a chimp from another troop,
even if that was a chimp that had moved 

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from their troop in the not too distant 
past and joined another,

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because sometimes the males leave and 
sometimes they go to other troops.

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If they are numbered them,
they would tear them to pieces and it 

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looked like that's why they were doing 
the border patrol.

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They're out looking for trouble there.
Gangs roughly speaking,

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they're looking for trouble.
But the point of it is is that,

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and they would only attack if they have 
numbers because chimps can.

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I wouldn't say they count,
but they have a rudimentary notion of 

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group size.
You know,

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I don't think you can count without 
being able to verbalize,

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but you can estimate at a glance.
And so,

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you know,
when I mean,

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when I say tear apart,
that's exactly what I mean.

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There's no upper limit on the brutality.
And so good all discovered that first.

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And she didn't tell anybody above it.
Now she had a reasons.

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I mean some of them I think radiological
or the lovely chimps,

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you know,
and fair enough.

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But some of it was also she thought that
maybe the chimps had been corrupted as a

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consequence of their contact with human 
beings and that their natural behavior 

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had been somehow transform,
you know,

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and that's not,
it's reasonable to be cautious if you're

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a scientist before you go out and say,
hey,

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chimps go to war.
Isn't that revolutionary?

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Because it is,
right?

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Because it just,
it just ends.

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The idea that our war,
like and malevolent nature is a function

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of culture.
Like if chimps do it well,

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what are they perverted by their own 
culture?

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I don't think so.
You know,

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I mean there are more and less violent 
chimp cultures and there are more and 

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less violent baboons culture.
So there was some cultural variation,

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but since goodall's time,
this sort of behavior is being 

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documented on many,
many chimp truths.

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So that's us in a nutshell.