Monkeysphere

[pieces o nine]

I came across this article while looking for something else, and although it's from 2007, I thought it was interesting and wondered what you sibling-peeps think.

What is the Monkeysphere?

First, picture a monkey. A monkey dressed like a little pirate, if that helps you. We'll call him Slappy.

Imagine you have Slappy as a pet. Imagine a personality for him. Maybe you and he have little pirate monkey adventures and maybe even join up to fight crime. Think how sad you'd be if Slappy died.

Now, imagine you get four more monkeys.
. . .

Now imagine a hundred monkeys.
. . .
At what point, in your mind, do your beloved pets become just a faceless sea of monkey? Even though each one is every bit the monkey Slappy was, there's a certain point where you will no longer really care if one of them dies.

So how many monkeys would it take before you stopped caring?
That's not a rhetorical question. We actually know the number.

Some science bits and then the article relates to us:

The Monkeysphere is the group of people who each of us, using our monkeyish brains, are able to conceptualize as people. If the monkey scientists are monkey right, it's physically impossible for this to be a number much larger than 150.
. . .
Those who exist outside that core group of a few dozen people are not people to us. They're sort of one-dimensional bit characters..

I think there's a lot of untapped discussion material in this article. This paragraph jumped out at me as I'd had to wait at several intersections while pedestrians on cellphones (and completely oblivious to their surroundings) muppeted off curbs to cross the street at one-tenth of a mile per hour.      Not that I would *ever* wedge my head out the window!   

Think about this the next time you get really pissed off in traffic, when you start throwing finger gestures and wedging your head out of the window to scream, "LEARN TO #*@ DRIVE, #*@!!" Try to imagine acting like that in a smaller group. Like if you're standing in an elevator with two friends and a coworker, and the friend goes to hit a button and accidentally punches the wrong one. Would you lean over, your mouth two inches from her ear, and scream "LEARN TO OPERATE THE #@* ELEVATOR BUTTONS, $&%!!"

That's one of the ingenious things about the big-time religions, by the way. The old religious writers knew it was easier to put the screws to a stranger, so they taught us to get a personal idea of a God in our heads who says, "No matter who you hurt, you're really hurting me. Also, I can crush you like a grape." You must admit that if they weren't writing words inspired by the Almighty, they at least understood the Monkeysphere.

I wish Christopher Hitchens were still alive just to see if I could get his take on that thought!

"So I'm supposed to suddenly start worrying about six billion strangers? That's not even possible!"

That's right, it isn't possible. That's the point.

What is hard to understand is that it's also impossible for them to care about you.

Ahhh, there's the rub. Many of the monkeys I have encountered (ones *definitely* outside my monkeysphere, I should admit) seem to lack the bandwidth to grasp that one.

. . .
but the truth is if a man doesn't feel sympathy for his fellow man at $6.00 an hour, he won't feel anything more at $600,000 a year.

Or, to look at it the other way, if we're allowed to be indifferent and even resentful to the masses for $6.00 an hour, just think of how angry the some Pakistani man is allowed to be when he's making the equivalent of six dollars a week.

It's not all the French's fault.

Nope, I'm probably not going to buy that monkey's book! But I really liked the article...

[Sibling DavidH]

That is really interesting, Pieces!  Thank you.  Plus, I stole the pirate monkey picture and posted it elswhere. 

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Interesting.  And directly related to how we monkeys evolved into social groups-- it was unlikely that our primitive-brain social groups exceeded 150 monkeys.   And more likely, it was that way for the majority of our primitive existence (pre-speech and therefore, pre-history).

So the question becomes:  can we, as a species, overcome this instinct before it's Too Late?   


Too late for what?  Well.... that ought to be obvious, but there's any number of things that could topple our global society monkeysphere back to the point that most (if not all) humans hairless* monkeys died out.  Kill enough of any given species within an area, and the genetic diversity (or lack thereof) will do the rest.   Even if, globally, there are sufficient monkey-humans** to survive, with the death of technology, they couldn't get together enough to stop the genetic destruction of our species.   And once the global food distribution is eliminated, that right there will wipe out vast swaths of monkey-culture.

Since we've previously wiped out all species close enough to us, to interbreed with?  That leaves nothing but extinction for us.  The lovely scenario oft written of by science fiction doom-sayers nonetheless:  a too primitive human situation will make our species go extinct, if there is insufficient genetic diversity.   This would be even worse, if the "what" was some sort of super-biological agent-- no, not one escaped from a lab, but rather one that evolved to be our Silver Bullet.  The genetic evidence seems to indicate this has happened in the past with other species. 

Of course, if our species did survive such a culling, it would strengthen the genetics of the survivors to the point that they'd not need to worry about it for another million generations or so.   Also, of course, such a vast change in numbers, it'd be unlikely that anything of our present era would survive-- even concrete will break down over time, if unburied, and rather quickly too.  Concrete is only limestone after all.   

And another worrisome aspect of our current culture:  the vast majority of information we have now?  Only exists as electronic ones and zeros.    If you don't know the key?  You cannot possibly decode it into anything meaningful. 

Don't believe me?  Even now, there are multiple ways in which to group, classify and encode using one's and zeros:  how many digits at a time becomes a single code-bit? (character)  In which order to you interpret these?  Is the order of interpreting the individual characters the same as the order of ones & zeros within a single character the same?   Do you group the characters in still larger settings--sets?  And these large-sets, grouped still larger set-groups?   And how about compression techniques?  Is the entire group-set under some sort of compression method, to save redundancy?   (90% or better, is these days)

And how about encryption?  Much of the ones and zeros are encrypted.... which involves more compression, more code-switching, more-more-more layers keeping the meaning away from strange, prying eyes....

... !!!

No, most of modern data has been rendered 100% unreadable by anyone without the Keys to the Kingdom.   The chance that a newly-emerging post-human society dredging up anything from today, and finding it useful, is pretty much zero.

... meh.

So much for Ugluck, the distant, post-human archeologist, digging up something from 2012, that would let his newly bronze-age culture quickly regain a foot-hold in modernism-- he unearthed a cache of silvery plastic discs though.  Some still having the paint on one side still legible.   He wondered what "AOL" was-- perhaps some religious organization?




____________________

* hairless--more or less, at least hairless as compared to our nearest still-living cousins
** as distinguished from the other monkey cultures left on Earth

[Swatopluk]

A few Mormons have to be kept alive. Their church makes big bucks from data rescue. They have stored just about any type of data recording device ever used and info about their use in some fortified caves and use them to transfer data from obsolete systems to new.
Interestingly mankind started with the most durable methods (clay tablets, expected shelf life if treated properly: >100k years) and now for the most part uses ones that last less than the average human lifespan.

[Griffin NoName]

Unfortunately there are >150 sick and disabled people in Britain.

And yes, before anyone asks (were you going  to?), Nazi-like slogans have started appearing.

[Aggie]

The Monkeysphere is the group of people who each of us, using our monkeyish brains, are able to conceptualize as people. If the monkey scientists are monkey right, it's physically impossible for this to be a number much larger than 150.
. . .
Those who exist outside that core group of a few dozen people are not people to us. They're sort of one-dimensional bit characters..

I think there's a lot of untapped discussion material in this article.

The universe is like that, or at least our perception of it is.  A fair bit of what we think we perceive, especially with relation to vision, is just made up by the brain according to necessity.  The only portion of the world that you need to resolve comprehensively is that portion which is in front of you at the moment, and the same for people. Certain speculative theories about the nature of the universe suggest that things may not need to actually exist in their full rendering where an observer is not present.

In an unnaturally large social environment (>150 people), it's simply impossible to acquire information in enough detail to construct a useful rendering of each person. While it's not a stretch to posit that we seek to acquire more detailed information about those we like (i.e. are socially or otherwise attracted to), I'd be willing to wager that we also feel compelled to 'like' and interact with those we have the most detailed information about.  This would explain (aside from cultural reasons) why we continue to have irrationally fond feelings towards family even when they are rather horrible people, and it certainly helps explain celebrity / tabloid culture.  Given enough information about a stranger, I think one would start having generally philial feelings towards them.

 The lovely scenario oft written of by science fiction doom-sayers nonetheless:  a too primitive human situation will make our species go extinct, if there is insufficient genetic diversity.   This would be even worse, if the "what" was some sort of super-biological agent-- no, not one escaped from a lab, but rather one that evolved to be our Silver Bullet.  The genetic evidence seems to indicate this has happened in the past with other species.  

The question is, what is too primitive? Although it'd make good sense to flee from the cities if a Big Scary hit, survivors would tend to reassemble near the major centres, I think. Depending on the rate of destruction of the Big Scary, there are likely to be caches of resources remaining in these areas (food may be scarce, but clothing, tools, equipment, petroleum and the like would still likely be plentiful).  The first generation should have a fair bit of knowledge left intact - there would be mechanics, there would be computer-savvy people, there would be survivalists who know how to feed and house themselves regardless of the circumstances. For the record, there are also a huge number of people currently living in the world without major help from advanced technology, and while they would not likely lead the vanguard of rebuilding, their way of life may not be significantly affected, or may even improve. Being a slightly-greater-than-subsistence-level farmer will become a relatively lucrative trade in a world without globalized food markets. There's no reason to suspect we'll drop into a pre-agricultural state, and agriculturalists are pretty good at taking a DIY approach to solve problems with whatever materials are at hand.

It's a question of time, I suppose...  what happened in the first 3 generations would be critical.  These generations should be able to maintain direct access to knowledge, shreds of culture, and skill-sets from before the break, and would have limited but usable access to technology (computers, internal-combustion machinery, even alternative-energy technologies).  The potential for recycling the detritus of the old civilization would also be huge; there would be little need to worry about mining in order to secure metals, for example, as there would be huge amounts of scrap iron/steel and aluminum ready to hand (which can be handled with relatively primitive techniques, at a pinch.  Low-tech plastic recycling shouldn't be overly difficult, either). Critically, the first generations will have usable road and rail systems that make the prospect of travel and trade quite possible, even with human- or animal-powered vehicles (covering 100 miles in a day on a bicycle is not out of the question).  The loss of modern medicine will be the biggest blow; while it's possible that we'll retain the knowledge, it might take some re-learning to work out how to culture and distribute antibiotics on a wide scale under the new conditions.

Also, in immigrant-based societies such as North America, the level of genetic diversity would be much higher and there would be less fear of a genetic bottleneck than in homogeneous countries (Africa's got tremendous genetic diversity on its own).  It's worth noting also that in terms of genetic diversity, most of human history has been spent in localized groups of >150 people, with probable limited intermarriage between closely related groups in the vicinity. Our bigger worry currently is that we are too genetically 'weak' in the developed world because modern medicine has stripped out many of the selective pressures that used to keep us sharp.

[pieces o nine]

That is really interesting, Pieces!  Thank you.  Plus, I stole the pirate monkey picture and posted it elswhere. 

How did you think I stumbled upon the article in the first place? Googling for monkey+pirate, of course! When I saw this one TOP I had a moment of thinking -- Wait! Did I steal that from DavidH?   

My take on this was a little less global. a little more local to my monkeysphere. I thought about the different places I've lived, the many different sets of people I've met in each of them -- through work, socially, from classes, from church, from volunteering, in changing neighborhoods, romantically + all *their* associated sets, including extended families! -- and the sheer numbers of people I've said goodbye to because of one of us moving on over the years...

When I call my mom, she always gives me an update on People Who Have Died That I Should Know And Be Upset About. [The ages of these people have steadily dropped from grandparents' generation, to parents', and now encroaching on mine.] A part of me is faintly -- irrationally -- irritated when she asks some variation on, "Do you remember Mrs. Obscure? She was the 4H Leader when your sister was in 4th grade? Her kids went to [college in some completely different state than any of us live in]? No? Well, she died. Cancer. She was only [insert age here]."

Part of me thinks: For carp's sake, mom, I didn't know her  then, and that was mumblety years ago!   But I make appropriate noises even though -- weirdly -- I don't care. Not really. I have suddenly reached a stage where I have to write the city & business name on my phone, as my subconscious will randomly supply past numbers. This ability to limit my monkeyshere is probably good for my mental health, but can make me appear cold and uncaring to those I have [grown] past.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

It's a survival mechanism, I think:  were we to be overly sentimental over every single person we hear about who has died, and who has some sort of link to us--even if more than 6 degrees of separation?

We'd be nothing but sentimental 24/7.

The fact is, people die.  It's what we do as a species-- every day, someone's someone dies.  So odds are, on any given day, someone you once knew or had some connection to in the past, dies.

The numbers (of people) are too large to be otherwise, and we as a species have become too mobile for the most part.

But as already pointed out, this mobile phenomena is pretty much a "first world" thing; more primitive cultures still have the majority of folk be born, grow up and die within a 100 mile radius (or less).

But I think the inability to care about someone who has become in essence, a complete stranger, keeps us from being overwhelmed, emotionally.

I do not know if that is a good thing, or a bad thing or neither--

-- but it's a fact of a mortal existence, that's for sure.

[Swatopluk]

The old term used over here was Kirchturmpolitik (bell tower policy). It describes a mentality/situation that the mental horizon of the common person stretched about as far as the bell tower of the local church could be seen and/or its bells heard. The rulers were very much in favor of that. Ludwig I. of Bavaria (predecessor of Ludwig II. of Wagner and Neuschwanstein fame) wrote poems against the railway because he clearly saw that this new mode of transportation would literally widen the horizon of his subjects and that this would have fatal longterm effects on the political status quo.

[Griffin NoName]

Good thing he never knew about aeroplanes

[Swatopluk]

Well, those did not really become means of mass transport until after WW2. Before that is was for the rich and privileged.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Well, those did not really become means of mass transport until after WW2. Before that is was for the rich and privileged.

Indeed it was.

In spite of that (or maybe because of it) Tulsa became a spot-on-the-map largely in part due to it's having an airport back in the 20's, and being near the edge of flying-range for most of the metal birds airborne in those days.

I've seen some of the photos dating back to the 20's and 30's depicting our airport.  All grass, naturally, but the location's still the same now as then.   Which, when I think of it, is kinda unusual.   Most of the earliest airports were moved further out from the major cities, and the former land co-opted for other development.   

[Aggie]

We'd be nothing but sentimental 24/7.

The fact is, people die.  It's what we do as a species-- every day, someone's someone dies.  So odds are, on any given day, someone you once knew or had some connection to in the past, dies.

The numbers (of people) are too large to be otherwise, and we as a species have become too mobile for the most part.

But as already pointed out, this mobile phenomena is pretty much a "first world" thing; more primitive cultures still have the majority of folk be born, grow up and die within a 100 mile radius (or less).

To tie together two pieces of that post, the fear of and seeming unnaturalness of death is largely a "first world" thing.  Smaller-group cultures who stay within a couple day's walk of their birthplace (and often in harsher environments) know the people around them much better as a result, but see them die a lot more frequently.  I suspect that's why they are sometimes better at celebrating life, and tend towards having much more mythology and ritual regarding death.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Good point, Aggie.  The more "primitive" cultures do seem more in touch with their feelings and recognize the mortality of life.

[Aggie]

I was speculating on this last night, and thinking that it's easier to understand the rise of religiosity in the context of a society where death is a regular part of life. I don't think it's too far of a stretch to say that some form of communal religious practice is a natural offshoot of those circumstances.



Which got me to thinking.... maybe atheism is a natural offshoot of a society in which death is hidden and usually only occurs under predictable circumstances (end of life, after battle with a long-term terminal illness rather than a short battle with a communicable disease, etc).

It leans a little heavily on the 'no atheists in a foxhole' line of thinking, but that doesn't mean is necessarily a false conclusion.