Sorry for the excessive posts, but I just finished watching an interesting documentary about the health hazards of chronic stress on not only the human body, but also the bodies of primates like baboons and macaques. It was shown that any primate that is higher-ranking in the social construct is under less stress and therefore less affected by various health conditions, like cardiovascular disease, obesity, and even aging.
In one particularly scintillating study, a scientist studied a colony of baboons over many years. At one point, however, disaster struck.
The colony began to eat food from a garbage dump that was ridden with tuberculosis.
Unlike what you may first think, the weak were not the ones to perish. The higher-ranking alpha males were virtually wiped out by this epidemic because they were the ones who got to eat the most and therefore were at a higher risk in this case.
In fact, the subordinate groups, in this case females and gentler males, were the survivors, and the colony underwent a change in personality. Aggression was frowned upon and kindness became the key to this society. This was because the "nice guys" were now the leaders, and they would not support anger and hatred.
The first thing I thought was that an epidemic designed to kill jerks would instantly solve the world's problems. :P
The second thing I thought was wondering how we as humans can cope with stress by eliminating superiority structures.
Any thoughts/reactions?
PS: Best blog title ever...
Actually, a disease to kill jerks isn't a bad idea...but probably unethical. I mean if it were human engineered. I cannot stand jerks :( Anyways, that is a very interesting study. If this were to actually happen to the human race, and all bad, mean, haters were eliminated, I feel like then something else would arise. It sounds nice on paper, or in a primate study, but it would be way different on the human race. Alright, funny side thought. Have you ever watched Planet of the Apes, the old one with Charlton Heston? Well now that I think about it, the nice monkeys were in charge, with some paramilitary ranked lower, but still the nice monkeys made the decisions. I think that's how it worked. But I think they were under a lot of stress, especially when a human showed up in the future. Alright, I'm done rambling. Nice post Cody, I enjoyed it. :)
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