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Female monkeys use wile to rally troops
- lambdasquirrel 10y agoNice article but the changed title is a bit linkbait.
- taneq 10y ago> Female vervet monkeys manipulate males into fighting battles by lavishing attention on brave soldiers while giving noncombatants the cold shoulder, researchers said on Wednesday. Title is basically the first sentence of the article.
- chongli 10y agoIs this really manipulation or is it just sexual selection for bravery/aggression/dominance? Are the female monkeys being disingenuous with their attentions or are they sincere? When I read some of the criteria for manipulation on Wikipedia [0] it seems to me like a pretty high bar to show these sorts of behaviours in monkeys. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation
- chillingeffect 10y agoThat's the defintion for Psychological manipulation, not manipulation such as the physical grooming. Manipulation is changing other's behavior, especially against their own self-interest.
- chongli 10y agoBut if the change in behaviour results in reproductive success, can it really be argued that it is against the being's self-interest?
- epicureanideal 10y agoYes. It may be good for the species, but very bad for the individual monkey that loses the fight.
- chongli 10y agoSpecies and individual are human classifications; they have no ultimate biological significance. If I reproduce successfully, then my genes benefit by becoming more common. If I die before reproducing successfully but manage to assist those who are closely related to me in reproduction, I still score a partial victory by having my genes become more common. The only way in which I truly lose is when my whole tribe gets wiped out.
- reddytowns 10y agoJust by being more common in the short term doesn't mean success in the long term, though. It's funny to even try and think what success means, given that success only has meaning in the future. I sometimes think of life as a very long proposed logical proof where each step depends on a a step later then it by one tick of the clock. And as time goes by it's continually reduced, a step at time, and eventually we will come to reveal its basis, somewhere out in the future, which is probably is logical false, and will unravel the original proposition, like it never existed in the first place (ie we all die in the end). Maybe that's all we are, anyway, pieces of a logical computation, which trying to determine something, some solution to a problem that was proposed at the beginning of life on this planet...
- da1 10y ago> Is this really manipulation or is it just sexual selection for bravery/aggression/dominance? What's the difference?
- tbrownaw 10y agoMaybe it's a way to deny them agency and therefore moral responsibility for the results of their actions?
- adamrezich 10y agoDo monkeys have morals? (Legitimate question.)
- da1 10y agoWell, they do show in-group preference. Does that count? I'd say yes.
- chongli 10y agoSexual selection for traits that otherwise have no discernible survival benefit or even harm survival happens all over the animal kingdom. Selection for bravery/aggression/dominance at least has the potential benefit of defense. Calling this sort of selection 'manipulation' on the part of female monkeys is making an unwarranted and human biased value judgement.
- 75j 10y agoOr could the females just be tending to wounds suffered by the most aggressive monkeys?
- sjcsjc 10y ago"The riskiest group activity of all is warfare, and few animals other than humans and monkeys engage in it."
- bootload 10y ago"... few animals other than humans and monkeys engage in it" Birds, ants, killer-whales are but a few I can immediately think of.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- reddytowns 10y agoBirds? I don't think so.
- daemin 10y agoThere's fighting to survive against a predator, there's fighting competitors for mating access, and then there's fighting between groups of the same animals. They mean that it's the third option that is rare among animals.
- bootload 10y ago"then there's fighting between groups of the same animals." have you not seen same animals fighting in groups against each other? Take your point though.
- cjcenizal 10y agoWillingness to fight seems to be a successful genetic trait for them. If you don't fight, your troop starves. I don't think "manipulation" has anything to do with it... if the troop doesn't pass on successful genes, the troop dies. So of course the fighters are the ones that mate!
- bjourne 10y agoWell, shunning fighting is also a successful trait or else the male monkeys wouldn't be doing it. A good strategy for them is perhaps to appears as if they are a great fighters but in reality back down from most dangerous fights.
- kochthesecond 10y agoLive to multiply another day
- thret 10y agoFonzie was famous for (almost) never fighting while cultivating a reputation for a fierce fighter. Throughout the show, almost without exception, people would simply back down. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A-DCWlLfOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A-DCWlLfOQ
- disposablezero 10y agoThree monkeys walked into a bar... I mean humans.
- MichaelMoser123 10y agoAnd i thought that the alpha monkey gets to do all the mating. The linked article implies that this is not the case. Are monkeys more egalitarian than apes?
- gspetr 10y agoMales have evolved to extract resources from the environment. Females have evolved to extract resources from males.
- scandox 10y agoI think by removing the word "monkey" you have opened yourself up to a charge of inaccuracy. After all, I'm going to hazard a guess that this is not true of all males of all species. Now some cynical people might think that you removed the word monkey in order to map this research onto humans, in order to make a point. While I'm sure that's not the case, I think it's worthwhile to recall many other evolved qualities human beings have, such as: cannibalism child molestation incest murder organised genocide disorganised genocide So I think we can all agree that our ability, however occasional, to transcend our evolved behaviours is a positive and that people who advocate for further improvements are to be respected.
- saiya-jin 10y agoyou don't get this joke, do you (yes, it's mostly for guys but not only, and no it's not completely hypothetical)
- scandox 10y agoI'd be very interested in your explanation of the joke. Please elaborate in as much detail as you can.
- raducu 10y agoThe joke is we're primates too, and human females do this all of the time, you can see this in the motif of two heros(one "good" and the other "bad") fighting for a female, "golddigger" being most of the time attributed to the female, to the psychological game called "Rapo" where a female entices a particular male's attention so that another male would fight the first male, and so an and so on. The joke is believing all of the "Women are wonderful" effect, that there's a "rape culture", vilifying men and pedestalizing women, and all of the PC crap that dictates males and females think/feel and behave the same way and disregarding all of the obvious evolutionary and logical conclusions that males are predisposed to violence and females to manipulation in order to get what they want.
- DanielleMolloy 10y agoAnd this is the current top comment. Welcome to Hacker News. (my reply gets MRA-downvoted in 3.. 2.. 1..)
- cperciva 10y agoPlease resist making comments about being downvoted. It never does any good, and makes boring reading. Also, avoid baiting users by announcing that you expect to be downvoted.
- DanielleMolloy 10y agoPlease resist trying to teach other users.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dijit 10y agoThis is completely off the subject but are you trying to indicate that he is somehow "man-splaining". Educating readers as to the code of conduct of the site is required otherwise you would be downvoted without understanding why and just blaming it on "them bloody MRA's".
- DanielleMolloy 10y agoThis is also completely off the subject, but I expect that in few minutes all my comments disappear as [flagged]. I am -20 from my score before the few comments in this thread now. The OP's strongly offensive statement is still one of the top comments for this article. Maybe there is something in here to "learn" for you guys.
- douche 10y agoComplaining about downvoting is never productive. They are just internet points.
- marvin 10y agoHumans do this too, on occasion. Apart from the obvious but difficult-to-verify night club anecdotes, here's a well-known historical example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_feather#World_War_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_feather#World_War_I
- cperciva 10y agoOn the other side of the coin, there's the fictionalized story of Lysistrata.
- internaut 10y agoNo need for fiction Colin, I'm sure you've heard of the Sabine women: "[They], from the outrage on whom the war originated, with hair dishevelled and garments rent, the timidity of their sex being overcome by such dreadful scenes, had the courage to throw themselves amid the flying weapons, and making a rush across, to part the incensed armies, and assuage their fury; imploring their fathers on the one side, their husbands on the other, 'that as fathers-in-law and sons-in-law they would not contaminate each other with impious blood, nor stain their offspring with parricide, the one their grandchildren, the other their children. If you are dissatisfied with the affinity between you, if with our marriages, turn your resentment against us; we are the cause of war, we of wounds and of bloodshed to our husbands and parents. It were better that we perish than live widowed or fatherless without one or other of you.' " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women
- cperciva 10y agoThat's a story of women as peacemakers, to be sure (although I'm not entirely sure how much of it is history and how much is legend). Unlike the Greek story (which is not necessarily entirely fictional) the Sabine women weren't specifically using sex as a weapon of peace, though.
- dmichulke 10y agoWow, in essence this means: "Dear husband, please take that chance to die. Love you, honey"
- tejtm 10y agoMale monkeys manipulate females into lavishing them with attention by fighting.
- RunawayGalaxy 10y agoSounds like a win-win to me.
- erikb 10y agoYeah, it's more a simple preference, not manipulation.
- stared 10y ago...and crows can push cats into a fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANZBs8Za0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANZBs8Za0Q, which I find more spectacular. (There are more such videos, it's not a singular case.)
- pjmlp 10y agoAnd on both cases those species are somehow close to ours in brain usage.
- 77pt77 10y agoIf crows ever get the ability to use firearms, humanity is done for... The level of machiavellian intelligence these animals have is scary. These crows go so far as to poke these cats mid-fight so as to entice them...
- known 10y agoMachiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (the lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others)
- da1 10y agoDark tetrad?
- ainiriand 10y agoThis is just another way of securing the best genes for the next generation. Perhaps a much more sophisticate one.
- Traubenfuchs 10y agoA dry and innocuous statement but ever so offensive to some. Love it!
- da1 10y agoTo a woman, a man is the main way in which she interacts with the physical environment.
- 75j 10y agoAnd yet I bet not too many women interact with you.
- dang 10y agoYou can't attack people personally here, no matter wrong they are. When encountering a trainwreck of a thread, like this one, please resist the temptation to make it worse. If you see an egregious comment, you can flag it by clicking on its timestamp to go to its page, then clicking 'flag' at the top.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dang 10y agoPlease don't post like this here. It may sound and feel clever, but its actual effect is to make a shitty flamewar even shittier. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13020973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13020973 and marked it off-topic.
- throw2016 10y agoI think a big difference between the sexes in humans is male aggression has the potential for violence while female aggression usually doesn't. So female aggression is more likely a social aggression, a more civilized agression that is also perhaps sometimes expressed into violence via their male counterparts. But this seems to be rare as humans females across the world are in general not aggressive. On the contrary they have been victims of extreme male aggression for thousands of years. Human males are extremely aggressive and violent towards others males, females and the world.
- da1 10y agoYou had to get your sock-puppet account for such a low effort comment?! Hope your armor isn't impairing your movement too much.
- Tephlon 10y agoAccusing him of being a sock-puppet and I'm going to assume the "armor" bit is either an allusion to "White Knighting" (Which is completely inaccurate here) or "Social Justice Warrior" which is an easy way for you to dismiss his views. Bravo.
- da1 10y agoIn another comment he claims he's been in HN for eight years but this account is like 16 days old. It is a sock-puppet account.
- dang 10y agoThat's a personal attack as well, and you've posted many other comments that break the HN guidelines. We ban users who do that, so please clean up your act.
- da1 10y agoHe has admitted that it's a sock-puppet account. He stated himself that he has created dozens of accounts and that uses them to post even when his accounts are throttled due to down-voting. How is stating a fact a personal attack?
- dang 10y ago> How is stating a fact a This is a trope of the serial troll. If you don't want to be banned from HN for trolling, please communicate in better faith. I don't believe 75j is a sock-puppet account. I think it's the primary account that user is currently using. They need to do a better job of following the site guidelines, and I've chided them about that in this thread, but it doesn't mean that what you've done is ok. Your vendetta is not only uncivil to a fellow user you're tweaking the nose of, but is the worst sort of procedural droning-on. No more of this, please, starting now.
- da1 10y ago> I've been on HN like 8 years curious because your profile says > created: 16 days ago Thank you for confirming you are using a sock-puppet account! (Edit: While apparently using your main account to down-vote. Classy!)
- midgetjones 10y ago'Apparently' how? Because you're being downvoted? I doubt, even if it is a sockpuppet account (which incidentally has amassed four times the karma you have), that they are the only one downvoting you.
- coderdude 10y agoHe's saying that because the person who says they've been here for 8 years registered 16 days ago. As if, in 8 years of Inflammatory HN commentary, only just now did they decide to stop lurking. And only just now did they become so vocal about what matters to them. That's my interpretation. It could also mean the more obvious, "I've been here for 8 years but under a different name."
- midgetjones 10y agoI specifically did not deny it was a sockpuppet. That was not my point.
- 12-4 10y ago> It could also mean the more obvious, "I've been here for 8 years but under a different name." Bingo. Why didn't you start with the more obvious interpretation? I've been here in my estimation for 7-8 years, with maybe the first 2 years of that being lurking. Check that 4 year old 'ledge' account too and you'll see that all the facts and stylometric features line up. When the 'submitting too fast' limitation (which ironically is because you people were downvoting me) is lifted on my current account, I'll be happy to angrily post from there again too. And I'm not using any of these other accounts to downvote anyone, or do anything deceptive. But how else could I prove that my current account being 16 days old is meaningless? I have made probably 30+ accounts on HN, and I wish I could find one of the 5-6 year old ones and log into it to really drive it home that you're wrong.
- dmichulke 10y agoDoes this mean gay monkeys are more likely to be non-violent? I don't particularly like the PC hype these days, but I think this could be a way to separate this from the gender domain and map it on the scarcity domain...
- dcacaac 10y agoAnd I am also 75j. My 75j account is getting a 'You're submitting too fast' message, so I'm doing all this on Tor. If you can't see the message from '75j__throwaway' that I posted initially to explain this, change your showdead setting to 'yes'. If you need any more proof that I'm not Danielle, then I'll do what I can. But you're wrong, and a bit of a prick. EDIT: Here it is actually, the message that I posted as '75j__throwaway' a few minutes before these 5 other replies: Do you geniuses know that it's possible to make more than one account on HN? I'm going to dig up older accounts to prove it. I make throwaways constantly here, though I've never used them deceptively. Unfortunately the oldest I could find is 4 years old and I can't log into it. However, it contains posts about living in Phnom Penh (which if I haven't alluded to with this account, I can prove) and linguistics-related stuff, which I recently mentioned studying in college: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ledge https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ledge I did find some other less old accounts that I can log into (12-4, ooooo00000, trill1, o0o0_ooo, dcacaac), and I will now proceed to login and reply with each one to this post.
- da1 10y agoI have no idea whether you truly are 75j, but if you are your comments are getting way too bizarre...
- 12-4 10y agoSo you think 5 accounts, the newest of which was created 203 days ago, all came together randomly to trick you into believing my (75j's) story? Again, these are not sock-puppets, they are just older accounts. I'm not using them to do anything deceptive, or downvote you. But how else am I supposed to prove my point that I've been here longer than 16 days? I would be posting this from my current account but apparently HN locks you out for a long time when you get downvoted heavily and post a lot.
- dang 10y agoWe've banned this account. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13024152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13024152 and please stop filling HN threads with dross. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13021872 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13021872 and marked it off-topic.