(2003-07-01) Robert Sapolsky Monkey Culture

Robert Sapolsky on on various primate cultures. Chimps intrinsically have a different version of being aggressive because whereas male baboons change troops at puberty-meaning that all the adult males in a troop are unrelated-male chimps spend their whole lives in the same group. It's the females who change tropps. A group containing big adult males who've known each other their whole lives, being related to some degree, is a prescription for dangerous males, and the building block of organized War Fare. And that's exactly what chimps do; they patrol their borders. It's a very similar demographic pattern to what is seen in patrilocal nomadic pastoralist cultures, the folks who invented warrior classes. These pastoralist societies try to increase the sense of relatedness amongst the warriors, melding them together, creating a pseudo-KinShip among young men who feel like they've known each other long enough to be willing to put their necks on the line for each other. That is one hell of a prescription for trouble for the neighbors. You sure decrease the Homicide rate within the group and you've virtually invented Genocide, and chimps were the first ones to get this one going. It's a scary combination.