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Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

bbc.com

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Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#141

Post by seizethecheese »

znort_ wrote: post #111
neom wrote: post #6

Here is the paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz4944 - it's interesting. I noticed there was a respiratory epidemic that killed 25 chimps naturally quickly, one would imagine that would have quite a societal destabilizing impact?

> a respiratory epidemic that killed 25 chimps naturally quickly, one would imagine that would have quite a societal destabilizing impact? there were several seemingly destabilizing factors, sort of a perfect storm, each contributing to further disconnect and polarization. the group grew too large (and displaced other groups), but then ended competing for the best food among themselves, and having trouble socializing…

Makes me wonder if civil war is more common for larger countries. Reminds me of the phenomenon where Latin American countries pretty much all broke up after independence from Spain.

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#142

Post by Shitty-kitty »

towledev wrote: post #59
stuxnet79 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For those of us who are unlikely to make time to watch a 4-part documentary, are there any particular lessons about social/political dynamics that you learned that stuck out to you or felt particularly prescient? I watched the entire 4-part documentary and loved it. In general the series gives you a raw look into the a-b-c's of primate politics. Chimps just like us and the rest of our ape cousins are preoccupied wi…

Was the fruit tree important for its fruit? Surely there are other fruit sources, no?

It's a forest, not an orchard, and most species fruit only once a year. The most important is the strangler fig tree as it produces fruit multiple times a year.

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#143

Post by mrloop »

perfmode wrote: post #17
delichon wrote: post #5

I hope nobody decides to violate the prime directive and take sides in the chimp war. To the extent that they have good memory, they live in a world of finite resources, and their behavior was shaped by the forces of game theory as applied to tribes, this is more or less inevitable. You can read that as defeatism or just math. We can't overcome the force of game theory, but we can make it work for us by making our tr…

That’s one way to look at it. It’s fairly common to view nature this way. I wonder where it comes from. I remember the time, in some film I watched, researchers intervened to save penguins trapped in a crater. A holy moment that was.

BBC Dynasties https://youtu.be/2Co_hmLenD8

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#144

Post by O5vYtytb »

andrekandre wrote: post #139
emilsedgh wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd attribute it to 2008 financial collapse, and in general, the pressure put on the middle class that began a decade earlier. And I genuinely believe blaming things on social media and news is just a diversion so we wouldn't look at the main issue.

2008 was the big one, but i really think the ball started rolling after 9/11...

Really though it all started with the federalist papers.

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#145

Post by jonahbenton »

Am reading Sapiens now, missed it the first time around. Incredible book. The point it makes isn't the killing among chimps being surprising. It is not relative non killing among humans- current day events notwithstanding. Contra the BBC, various human storytelling manifestations- religion/culture/etc- make large scale coordinated peaceful actions possible.

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#146

Post by voidhorse »

londons_explore wrote: post #38
OgsyedIE wrote: post #32

The primatologist Richard Wrangam once advanced the theory that tribe vs. tribe conspecific homicides - what he called coalitionary killing - are an evolved trait that was selected for in primates by some kind of pro-homicide selection pressures in the ancestral environment (where homicide reliably grants an advantage to the expected relative gene frequency of the perpetrator's genes). I haven't kept up with biology…

It seems obvious to me - it's the combination of two ideas: 1. When competing for resources, killing your neighbour frees up resources, which you can take. Most species of animal and even plants do this to some extent. 2. By collaborating in a group, you can achieve more than individuals acting alone. This is the idea behind teams, companies, countries, etc. Combine the two ideas, and you get war.

[flagged]

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#147

Post by crazydoggers »

dyauspitr wrote: post #41
crazydoggers wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We both do it because chimps and humans shared a common ancestor only 8 million years ago.

8 million years is a drop on the geological time scale, but on a species scale that’s an eternity. We went from Neanderthals and Denisovans to sapiens in a fraction of that time.

To be clear, sapiens didn’t descend from neanderthals or Denisovans, our species lived alongside those and interbred with them. The common ancestor of sapiens and neanderthals was probably around 500,000 years, probably heidelbergensis. So half a million years is “short” but also still Homo, and something you would almost definitely identify closer to human than ape.

Shared social structures and behaviors can last through much longer periods of time than 8 million years. For example take bees and ants sharing a common ancestor in the 100 of millions of years age.

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#148

Post by bawolff »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #125
ozim wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dying in your prime reproductive age! I guess dying because you think you’re going to impress’s a mate and stay alive is quite common.

>I guess dying because you think you’re going to impress’s a mate and stay alive is quite common. based on my memory of readings in the matter I don't think so, most animal species "impress a mate" is either 1. do mating ritual better than others 2. actually directly compete with rival who has mate to win mate. In the second more rare scenario the actually directly compete with rival tends to be very ritualized, and…

In fairness, i dont think dying to impress a girl is particularly common among humans either.

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#149

Post by bawolff »

bluegatty wrote: post #64
londons_explore wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems obvious to me - it's the combination of two ideas: 1. When competing for resources, killing your neighbour frees up resources, which you can take. Most species of animal and even plants do this to some extent. 2. By collaborating in a group, you can achieve more than individuals acting alone. This is the idea behind teams, companies, countries, etc. Combine the two ideas, and you get war.

Yes, but war is worse for all parties generally. Lions murdering prey to eat is a stable equilibrium. Primates fighting each other is not. Murdering for acquisition of a resource is short term advantage. We are strongly, strongly evolutionary oriented away from 'murder' - it's the original sin. It's not something we even argue over. Murder = Bad. No disagreement across cultures. Murder = social cheating. No disagreem…

> Murder = Bad. No disagreement across cultures.

Yeah, but almost all cultures consider killing people in war not to be "murder".

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#150

Post by bawolff »

bjourne wrote: post #123
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing interpersonal murder with tribal conflict. Personal murder is tightly controlled now . But this is a fairly recent development. In many periods it was tolerated under various forms, including slavery, blood feud, honour killings, and state-sanctioned murder as punishment, or political process. It's only in the last few centuries that it's been prohibited, and the prohibition in practice is still part…

You are juxtaposing murder with killing. Every culture has a strong taboo against unlawful killing, i.e., murder. What counts as murder has changed, but the taboo against murder itself has not.

But doesn't that distinction kind of prove the point? Essentially killing people is fine when society approves and not fine when society doesn't implies that there is no built in norm against killing, its just society's "rules".
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